It’s been a busy few months since our first issue of BANTER – Since then, we have welcomed three new ‘babies’ into our lives! On May 25th we opened the big and beautiful BB Christchurch, five days later on May 30th we opened the lively and lovely BB Mount Maunganui and on June 5th, Stephen, Olympia and I welcomed our second baby girl Octavia.

Burger Burger has felt like my ‘baby’ since the day we started it in 2014. I love it so much that I have thrown all my passion and energy into it, even if it has meant sacrificing a little bit of myself along the way (read: working up until my due date). On that note, opening two restaurants five days apart (at full term) was crazy and incredible at the same time. I’ll admit that I won’t be rushing to do it again, but I’m extremely proud of how our team came together to pull it off, and I’m so grateful to have brought a perfect healthy little human into this world, even if it means our household is chaos right now!

Burger Burger, Christchurch

Burger Burger, Mount Maunganui

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about what ‘sustainability’ means to me in terms of how we grow and manage our family at home, and also what this means for BB in the years to come. We get loads of feedback from concerned customers about the products that we use not making a large enough environmental statement. The truth is, like at home we can never do all the things we’d like to, all at the same time, so we make a call and prioritise what we think will make the most meaningful impact, with the resources, energy and money we have available.

In the true sense of the word, sustainability means ‘the capacity to endure’ and the reality for hospitality at the moment is that it is getting harder and harder to endure the seemingly never ending rising costs (staff, produce and construction to name a few!) Although we can’t action everything we’d like to immediately, I am 100% behind doing everything we can at BB to protect our environment. I can assure you that this issue is top of mind for us at the moment. The trouble is, I am also 100% passionate about sourcing local products and supporting local businesses as much as we can, and I think it’s super important that we prioritise our people – so there are some core values in our business that are competing for the resources, energy and money that I mentioned above. It’s a juggle! What I would like to hear from you all is, what issues REALLY mean something to you? Which ones are you willing to actually pay for? As much as I hate to say it, it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that in our industry, to be the best businesses we can be, we must pass on some of the increased costs of being our best selves to the consumer. Rising costs affect our ‘capacity to endure’ because we are already running on super tight margins, and we are committed to being a sustainable business.

Please comment below to share your thoughts with us, and don’t hold back! I’m excited to hear what you have to say.

Thank you as always to my team for supporting the dream. I know you all made personal sacrifices to support us through this crazy time and it has been deeply appreciated.

Ciao for now,
Mimi