Coronavirus: Chef Shane Delia fights back business of the future

When coronavirus hit, Shane Delia quickly concluded takeaway versions of restaurant food was the wrong model. His solution? An all-new business.

Chef Shane Delia is getting his hands dirty in the kitchen, supplying healthy family food, while the dining area of his Maha restaurant is closed. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Most chefs who morphed into businessmen as their restaurant empires grew are saying how excited they are to be back in their kitchens. To be smelling the smoke, flexing the forearm, manhandling carcasses in these – frankly – dreadful times for the restaurant industry.

Shane Delia, who shut down three Melbourne restaurants and a fast-food business three weeks ago to nip the COVID-19 threat in the bud, felt a little differently.

“When I first contemplated it, it was pretty daunting,” says Delia, whose multiple SBS series have made him widely known outside his home town where his profile as a restaurateur and media personality, and Mercedes ambassador, is at odds with the reality of a demanding commercial kitchen.

“When I sat down in the dark and quiet of my own bedroom with the kids and Maha (his wife) asleep beside me, I want to say I was excited, but the truth is it was quite depressing,” he says.

“I felt like I’ve been doing this since this since I was 15 years old and I was asking ‘Hell, do I have enough fight in me to get back in there and do it again?’ Because that’s what I’m really asking of myself and of my team: have I got enough fight to be that chef that I was when I was 28 and opened my first restaurant?”

Now 40, Delia employed 110 staff and casuals BC (before COVID). He had just opened Maha Bar in the inner suburb of Collingwood; it lasted two weeks.

Shane Delia employed 110 staff and casuals BC (before COVID). Picture: Stuart McEvoy

But the chef quickly concluded takeaway or home-delivered versions of restaurant food was the wrong model for any chance at long-term survival.

His solution is an all-new business, he says, built around home-delivered food, mostly 75 per cent ready to be finished by the customer, that is anything but a facsimile of the restaurant experience.

“Takeaway hasn’t got legs, it’s a short-term fix,” he says from the kitchen at his Melbourne CBD restaurant now operating as the production kitchen for Maha Go.

“You can’t hold on to yesterday. It’s gone … If we treat this as a stopgap until the sun comes out again, we’re doomed. How long can a two or three-hat restaurant serve takeaway? And how long can you be compliant? What does it do to your brand? We don’t want people to come back to the restaurant and remember the time they had it as takeaway.”

The focus, he says, is on nourishing, healthy family food that will be affordable, and he has a partnership in place for delivery within a 25km radius on central Melbourne.

“We forecast in the next two months there’ll be enough revenue and turnover to bring back at least 50 per cent of our staff in some capacity. We’re not looking to turn over millions of dollars, we’re being realistic, we understand we are opening in stressful times

“I’m in there with the boys … I’m chopping, I’m sauteing, I’m sealing, I’m bagging and sticking. I’m doing the lot. Morale is really high, it honestly feels like we’re about to open a new restaurant. And I’m excited about the opportunity. We are approaching this as a business of the future, not a short term thing.”