Fans of Ethos, the East Fremantle deli-cum-restaurant that recently shut its doors, may have some hope in sight.
Co-owners Melissa Palinkas and Susan Whelan speak to WAGFG’s Max Brearley about what’s next for Ethos, a renewed focus on their “first baby” Young George, and the challenges facing the hospitality industry.
Closing a business like Ethos, with such a local following, can’t have been easy?
Susan Whelan (SW): Ethos is almost five years old—half the age of Young George. It started in the time of the pandemic, and I think from our original plans to what it ended up being was moulded by the changes in the industry in that time. I think for us, the decision in the end—there are lots of factors like staffing consistency and rising costs—but we had two venues on the one street and trying to uphold the standard that we wanted in both became increasingly difficult for us.
It’s kind of ironic because with both venues that we have, we put a lot of focus on sustainability, but that sustainability also must be for the person who’s running the business. You’re there making coffee at Ethos at 7AM, and then you’re leaving Young George at midnight, you have one day off a week, and you’re a wreck. You end up asking, “What are we doing this for?” You start to lose your passion.
Melissa Palinkas (MP): For me personally, it started when we closed dinner services at Ethos, which was one of the saddest things that happened to that business because it was so good and it was busy, but I couldn’t maintain that and get the right calibre of chef back in.
Adam, our former head chef, had worked for me for like two or three years in there. Times have changed and it was just so difficult to find someone. Anyone I got in there just did not understand or didn’t have the calibre that we needed to maintain it without me being there. It was kind of me having to split myself in two.
It just really wore us down to a point where it was really hard to sustain our own well-being. Without finding those people, it was just more and more calling to us that we needed to do something drastic for ourselves to be able to sustain ourselves. So, we chose to let it go.
Do you see this situation repeated elsewhere in the industry?
SW: There are so many venues now in Perth, so many new openings. There are lots of places people can choose to work. There are also a lot of people choosing not to even go into the industry. And then there’s always, for WA, the lure of the mines. It’s always there. I could have front of house staff one week and the next week they’re like, “oh, I’ve just got my white ticket and the mine’s called, sorry, I’m off.”
MP: And where are those staunch old school chefs that just come in and want to be a chef, want to cook really good food and just get amongst the camaraderie of being in a kitchen, being in the team? That has died. I have a team of really young chefs who are excellent, but I’ve trained them all.
SW: I think that’s the best way to get the right fit, to get them at a young age and to train them up. But it puts a lot of pressure on the person at the top, because you always have this Peter Pan thing where everyone around you is always young, and you’re the only one that’s getting old. You just have this constant revolving door of staff that come in, you train them up, and they go. It’s tough.
The overall view of hospitality is that it’s not really a career, especially when it comes to front of house. I’ve been in Australia for 20 years, and that has changed slightly, but it still doesn’t really hold the same sort of value as, say, when you go into pubs in the UK and Ireland and you’ll see a 55-year-old bartender. More could be done to keep people within the industry and not have them leave as soon as they get a “proper job.”
So, with the decision to close, is it the end for Ethos?
SW: No, we’ve still got the wholesale charcuterie, so Melissa gets to hold on to that aspect of that she really enjoys, and we’re still selling charcuterie.
MP: We’re looking at getting a separate premise for it and then taking it out of Young George. We’ll let things settle, and then we’ll find a place to do it. We’re working on an online platform and are still working closely with Dirty Clean Food. Lots of things going on.
And what does this all mean for Young George?
MP: It means our focus is now in this building all the time. I absolutely love being here. And it’s the 10-year anniversary of Young George.
Can we expect anything special to celebrate?
SW: We want to kick off in June, and then we’re going to be planning a couple of little events and collabs through to the end of the year. Also, during the pandemic we closed our breakfast down, which had a bit of a cult following. We were always so busy. After the pandemic, we couldn’t staff it, and we decided not to do it again. But we’re going to go back to our three-morning format.
What can we expect from mornings? The return of your classics?
MP: Absolutely, I reckon it’s the son-in-law eggs and also our take on a huevos rancheros. People would come in for those, and they’d sell out the door. I’m going to do the dry-cured bacon again instead of the continental bacon we’d do up at Ethos. We’ll be doing crumpets, and we’ll be playing around with croissant pastry, our own kind of croissant toast, which we did up at Ethos. We compressed the croissant and then added avocado and other toppings.
I’m just going through a bit of development with all that, and bringing in some healthy and gluten-free options that work for our local Freo community. It’ll be a balanced menu of brunch and breakfast items. It’s been great, really invigorating.
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