For some people, a life in hospitality isn't a choice,
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it’s more of a calling that they can't ignore.
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And for Roy and Charlie El Hachem
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and their dad Harry,
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as soon as you meet them
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you can tell that hospitality is in their blood.
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I’m here at their Auburn location
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which is number 43 of 45,
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to see how they were capable
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of such staggering growth.
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This is Beyond The Pass.
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Good morning, fellas.
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Come here!
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So how did the idea for Piccolo Me come around?
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So it comes to our first location.
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It was pretty small.
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Piccolo was our favourite drink as well,
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so we we're like
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“How can we kind of do a play on words here?”
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Piccolo being ‘small’ in Italian.
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First location being small.
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And the ‘me’ part came about us.
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We really just wanted to create a place
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where we just had fun, show to everyone
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what we love doing.
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And to be honest, Roy is like the real creative
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one in the family.
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Roy makes the money
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and I'm the one that spends it
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We got that on camera, right?
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Because I want to remember this
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for years to come, right.
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We got that.
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We were like, one of the first, cafes in the city
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that was mainstream selling Piccolo's.
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Yeah, that's true.
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Every like lunchtime
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at one of our restaurants in the city,
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everyone would come at lunchtime
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and have a piccolo with us
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and we wouldn't charge them for it
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but it was just a way to break bread, I guess.
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When we went from Western Sydney or like,
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you know those old school cafes into the CBD
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where it's all about crema,
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it's all about latte art.
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Dad's like
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“Why do we need four baristas on the coffee machine?”
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You know?
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“I used to do this by myself!”
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So tell me about growing up in hospo.
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It's kind of a family tradition.
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Yeah, so my earliest memories was growing up in Dad’s
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donut shop.
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That's my dad.
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Heyyyyy!
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Welcome to the family!
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Dad came to Australia with pretty much nothing.
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And he threw himself into hospitality.
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To be honest,
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I've studied I've done all the things
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that we were supposed to do.
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What our parents wanted us to do.
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Me and Roy found ourselves back into the game
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and we haven't looked back.
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It just drags you in, doesn't it?
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Yeah, there's a pull.
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There's something about it
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that once you're in it, you can't get out.
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Look at these grey hairs.
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I'm only 21. Same, same.
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Look at us teenagers.
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And what were like,
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the founding values of Piccolo Me?
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Is there something that kind of drags
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you back to your roots?
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Dad keeps us real, keeps us honest.
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He’s hard working.
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You always see him around one of our stores
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cleaning, fixing.
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He really doesn't need to work.
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But he does it out of love.
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And that is what keeps us real, keeps us humble
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and it keeps us pushing to be better.
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What was the most viral thing that you created?
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So in our office, we have this whiteboard.
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And this whiteboard was in Roy's bedroom.
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So this guy would go to sleep,
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wake up in the middle of the night,
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on the whiteboard, draw the idea, go to sleep
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and that's how a lot of the viral things came.
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I think it helped that
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I didn't have any food education.
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So I didn't think like a chef,
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like so a cheeseburger croissant
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for example, a chef wouldn't be doing that.
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So I think probably the cheeseburger croissant
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was like our point of...
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...of Grace.
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We got like a lot of hate mail.
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We made the international media.
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So we actually had people from France
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emailing us and messaging us.
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“Sacrilegious! How dare you
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put this meat on our croissant?”
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And they got a photo of Roy like his smile.
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His big cheesy smile.
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They're like “Who the hell is this Australian?
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What does he think he’s doing to our croissant?”
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And they were like “And the worst thing about it is he's
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actually proud of his creation!”
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Great.
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It was that and probably...
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so we created a Nutella fried ice cream.
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So we went viral for doing a little small ball.
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Then obviously I went a bit overboard
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and created the world's largest one kilo fried cream ball.
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And then I actually made a competition out of it.
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So I had a challenge where someone would come in
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and finish it within ten minutes and have a shake—
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Has anyone finish the one kilo ice cream?
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Oh, heaps.
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And they finished it in I think about one minute.
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We lost a sh*tload of money on that.
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Yeah, it wasn’t good.
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Should we go in and make
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some of your creations, then?
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Yeah, I think we should.
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You have to try our fries.
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Our fries are amazing.
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You're the chef for the day.
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Look out.
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Let’s start with some bacon.
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Hashbrown?
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We’ll do a hashbrown now, yeah.
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Egg.
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We have a bun ready for you there.
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It smells like the hangover is going to be gone.
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Zero hangover after this.
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Oi, Roy, Charlie get a move on.
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Chop chop.
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What are you guys having?
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Mate, we gonna have a bit of everything today.
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But before we start
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I think we can’t have family lunch without out father.
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Harry, come on in mate!
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Papa Piccolo!
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Harry, what's your favourite thing?
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The chips.
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The fries.
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Let Graeme try the fries Harry.
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Have you tried that fry?
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I haven't.
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You have to eat it
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and you have to lick your finger.
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If you don’t lick your finger,
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there's some problem. Okay, let me feed you.
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That’s poetry in motion, my friend.
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Graeme, we saw you in the kitchen.
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What did you get up to today?
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I made my version of
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your hangover roll
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with probably three times the ingredients
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so the cogs on this one are going to be...
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they’re not going to be good for you business-wise.
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Where do I start?
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Oh, where's my bite?
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Oh, yeah!
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Oh, we made the cheeseburger croissant.
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You gotta give this a go.
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*cheers*
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How do you like them apples?
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Have some fries! Have some drinks!
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And that's what hospitality is all about.
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Breaking bread together.
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What do you guys think the future holds more franchises?
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Yeah, more franchised.
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Definitely international expansion for us is on the cards.
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We need to piccolo the world.
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We're going to be looking at
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finding entrepreneurs and founders.
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If they've got that little bit of spark,
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we want to come in with our systems
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and help them grow and fast track them on their journeys.
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You know, speaking about what we do
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also reminds us why we came into the business.
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And how proud we are of our journey
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to get where we are today
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and not giving up and resilient.
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And is just pretty much the tip of the iceberg.
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And we love Dad.
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And we love our Papa Piccolo.
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Thanks.
