Donovans restaurant in St Kilda celebrates 21st birthday

IT’S been a Melbourne institution for 21 years and served almost 1.5 million diners, but Donovans restaurant owners Kevin and Gail Donovan say there is no secret ingredient to their success.

It was 1997. The year the world was introduced to a bespectacled wizard with a lightning bolt scar, w e said goodbye to the ‘People’s Princess’ and Michael Hutchence and hello to The Castle and the Toyota Prius.

Might and Power galloped to victory in the Melbourne Cup,
Pat Rafter won the US Open, the Adelaide Crows defeated St Kilda to become AFL Premiers — and Kevin and Gail Donovan opened the doors to their beloved “home on the beach”.

For 21 years, people have shared some of their happiest moments at the couple’s St Kilda restaurant, including birthdays, anniversaries and engagements.

Now the Donovans are celebrating their “little girl’s” — they refer to the Jacka Blvd haunt as a “she” — milestone birthday with a series of special events running from now until September.

“We just love her and we want everyone else to love her too,”
Gail said.

“She can be difficult, but that’s why we love her.”

Over the past 21 years, more than 1.4 million people have dined at Donovans.

The team have dished up 63,882 T-bone steaks and 100,254 Bombe Alaskas.

It has all been part of the husband and wife restaurateurs’ dream to run their own eatery.

For Kevin, the son of an English teacher who grew up in Connecticut, that dream started at age 14.

“As the son of a teacher, it was never a question of if I went to college, it was a question of where, and to do what. My father wanted me to do a business degree but I had my heart set on hospitality.”

Gail and Kevin Donovan. Photo Luis Enrique Ascui

Between them, Kevin and Gail have amassed more than 100 years in the industry and they say their recipe for success is their “solid and unchanging” ethos: “everybody has to feel welcome”.

“We really want people to feel at home here, like they’ve been invited to our home on the beach,” Gail said.

“People’s favourite restaurant is where they’re looked after so that’s what we try and do. We don’t always get it right but we try.”

Kevin added: “We’re in the service industry so we need to make sure we serve people what they want”.

“Our menu, too, is about what people want to eat — it’s for our guests, not the ego of a chef.”

And boy did that get put to the test a couple of years back when they changed up the offering.

A decision to take the chicken pot pie off the menu caused a full-scale meltdown among regulars.

“There was a revolt,” Kevin said. “We had about 40 emails from people furious we had taken it off the menu.

“Now there are 10 dishes that have been on there for almost the entire 21 years that we will never take off the menu. And they still manage to outsell every other dish,” Gail added.

Then … Kevin and Gail Donovan when they opened in 1997.

And now … 21 years later. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Getting the one-big-happy-family vibe right was key, she said, if you want guests — and staff — to keep coming back.

And the Donovans didn’t want to take the beachside location for granted.

“It’s not enough to have people just coming here in summer because of the view,” Gail said. “The beach has to be a bonus, not the reason people come.”

Seventy-three people work across all aspects of the Donovans’ business and, in an extraordinary feat, several are eligible for long service leave.

“The terms ‘hospitality industry’ and ‘long service leave’ are generally mutually exclusive but we have seven staff members eligible to take it and more who have been here long enough to start accruing it,” Kevin said.

The Donovans met in 1986, when Kevin moved to Australia to head up the food and beverage crew at the newly opened Grand Hyatt.

Gail went for an interview and “immediately fell in love with the man in front of me”.

Three years later they opened Chinois before taking over the St Kilda foreshore site that became Donovans in 1997.

And in all their years living and working together, they insist they’ve never had a fight.

“It takes too much energy to argue so I’ll only ever pick the battles I know I can win,” Kevin said with a laugh.

Just like ingredients in the dishes they serve, each can stand on its own but they work better together.

“Kevin is really good at the things I’m not good at, like the finer details, and I’m better at looking at the big picture,” Gail said.

“I always say imagination is thinking something up and creativity is what pulls it off — Gail has the imagination and I have the creativity,” Kevin said.

And when it comes to changing up the decor, Gail’s imagination knows no bounds.

Every six months Gail and her friend Darryl Bell do a themed makeover, replacing dozens of knick-knacks around the restaurant.

“We’ve had a poodle parlour theme, a games room — there have been 42 changes of decor over the 21 years,” Gail said.

“The thing I notice in a lot of other restaurants is nobody takes any interest in the bathrooms so we make sure we do.”

When the restaurant fell victim to the fiery curse of the St Kilda foreshore, the odds and ends — now packed wall to ceiling into sheds — somehow survived.

The August 2014 blaze, sparked by embers from a chargrill, destroyed the kitchen and parts of the bar and private dining room.

About 50 people were forced to evacuate the building and Kevin and Gail could only watch as flames engulfed their girl.

Determined to keep the hospitality alive during the six months the restaurant was shut, Gail and Kevin set up Donovans Army and worked with charities, including Sacred Heart Mission, as well as hosting barbecues at nearby housing commission flats.

And when asked about retirements, the Donovans are adamant it’s not something they’re contemplating.

“What would I do? I can’t play golf every day and I hate gardening,” Kevin laughed.

“It’s like that old saying: do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. This is what I love — I’m literally living my dream right now.”

donovans.com.au