Gold Coast business: Brothers Matt and Nick Stanley bring slice of cuzzie culture to the GC with pie making venture

Kiwi brothers have brought their best pie-making game to the Gold Coast. And they believe one taste will have you saying, ‘chur bro’

Cuzzie Pies are proving a hit on the Gold Coast.

BANTER with our Kiwi cousins using the “cuzzie” moniker has a long and rich tradition in Australia.

Kiwi creative director Nick Stanley has leveraged off that relationship to come up with the Cuzzie Pies brand.

Mr Stanley, who works in the business with his Olympian swimmer brother Matt Stanley, said the idea came to him after moving to Sydney in 2015.

“I just woke up with a hangover one morning. I had only been here two weeks and said to my mates, ‘let’s go get a pie’. They told me you couldn’t get good pies here. That didn’t make any sense to me.”

Brothers Nick and Matt Stanley have launched Cuzzie Pies on the Gold Coast. Picture Glenn Hampson

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Mr Stanley said pies, like burgers, at least until recently, were something that traditionally had been done poorly with low-quality ingredients.

He started to mull the idea for a pie brand, but it wasn’t until he met fellow Kiwi Kevin Halbert, an experienced pie maker, in 2017 that it gained traction.

“After I met Kevin and hung out with him for a while, I noticed his character was similar to how my mates were seeing New Zealanders. They used to always call me ‘cuzzie’ even though I’m a white fellow,” Mr Stanley said. “There is a piss-taking culture between them and us and this trans-Tasman rivalry based around inclusivity and good old-fashioned banter.

“I saw an opportunity for a product New Zealand and Australia could share.”

A steak and cheese pie in the ‘cuzzie’ style.

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Mr Stanley formulated the pie recipes with Mr Halbert and another chef friend and engaged leading Kiwi creative director Billy McQueen to come up with the logo for the launch party held in Sydney in late 2017.

It wasn’t until Mr Stanley enlisted the help of his Gold Coast-based brother to cater for an event in Sydney that he decided it was better to relocate to the Glitter Strip.

“We knew we could get a cheaper factory on the Gold Coast. Starting a business here is way easier than it is in Sydney. We’ve had so much support from the local community,” he said.

The pair found a commercial kitchen in Burleigh and started doing their first farmers’ market in December.

Matt and Nick Stanley, of Cuzzie Pies.

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“Old people are my favourite customer. They take a bite and say they haven’t had a pie like ours in 35 years,” Mr Stanley said.

They recently opened a small 8sq m hole-in-the-wall shop on Orchid Ave, Surfers Paradise, designed to tap into a younger customer base of late-night clubbers.

There are plans to start making family pies for supermarkets and for more small-scale shops open into the early hours of the weekend.

The biggest problem so far is keeping up with demand. Last month they made 1000 pies in one week for the first time.

“Our major problem is we start making pies on Wednesday and by the time we go to bed on Sunday night there is not a single pie in stock,” Mr Stanley said.