Hard work is what will take you further in the beverage industry. From learning on the job, to doing your ‘homework’ and expanding your knowledge on drinks and the trade. This is what will take you further. Gina talks about her experience coming into hospo in Abu Dhabi, to getting behind the bar at Parasol and Swing, to being asked to be an Account Manager at Tickety-Boo. Working through the weeds of an America’s Cup that happened to fall on St Patrick’s Day, and then having to card a 60-year-old? Yup. Take it all in.
Sarah: How did you end up working in hospitality?
Gina: I first started working in hospitality when I moved to Abu Dhabi. That's where my grandparents lived for many, many years. But when I left school in the UK, all my friends were going to uni and I didn't really see myself at that point going to uni. Especially as I tried so hard to get a part time job when I was finishing up in school. But no one was taking any new people with no experience, but you couldn't get experience because you couldn't get a job.
It was just a vicious cycle at that point in the UK, especially in Wales where I was. I decided to go study in Abu Dhabi and live with my grandmother. I took on hospitality management, studying there and working part time for an events company. The events company was actually in charge of supplying staff for the F1 in Abu Dhabi, royal weddings and all this sort of fun stuff.
I had a really broad start to hospitality. The F1 was amazing. And royal weddings were bizarre, but really cool. After a year of being there, I moved back to the UK and started working in hotels waitressing in restaurants. In that first hotel I worked in, I quickly went up to supervisor, manager, and then I was somehow duty manager of a hotel at this point.
Those requests were pretty wild. When maintenance were off shift and it was 9 PM at night and someone's bath is clogged or they call in their car for something, it's pretty wild. And then after that I moved to Australia and started working in restaurants first and then slowly moved into bars.
And that's when I really started falling in love with the bar scene. I had some really great managers, supervisors, even just general colleagues that I'd worked with. Some really talented Italians. I started working in bars for a place called the Maryville group, which I've known.
I was with them for about two years. And then my time at Australia, unfortunately came to an end. I was like, well, I'm on this side of the country. I'll go over and check out New Zealand. And that was six years ago now. I only really planned to be here for my year or two working holiday. Been here six years.
I worked at Parasol when I got to New Zealand. And then Jamie from Ticketyboo approached me to work for them when I was coming towards the end of my time at Parasol. And I thought I'd check out this side of the industry, which has been really fun. It was a huge change to begin with, finishing at 6am, to now starting nine to five and having weekends, was really weird for a long time. It's still kind of weird.
But it's been nice. To move forwards and help with the educating side of things and looking after brands and trying to get stuff from brands to help the industry, not just to sell to people. Cause our brands are quite niche.
Sarah: What is your current role with Tickety Boo?
Gina: I'm currently an account manager on premise for Tickety Boo. I look after Auckland and Wellington at the moment, which is great. Auckland and Wellington are so different. Wellington's a lot smaller and Auckland, you have to know your different suburbs.
It's really different and fun looking after niche brands who are kind of wanting to be the bartender's brands. Not necessarily focus on volume, but to focus on the industry and educating. That's incredible. Interesting. I always wondered about taking that path because this seems like a very obvious route for a lot of people in hospitality.
I honestly never even thought about it until Jamie approached me. At the time, Maddie Tate was working there and Jamie's also great. So I was like, why would I not? I think I probably would have questioned it a bit more if it was a bigger company. I think we're lucky at Tickety Boo because we get to do all aspects of the job.
We do a lot of the marketing side as well, even though my role is account manager. I help to organize and run activations. We get to do a bit more brand management each. It's not just one person looking after that. I don't just go on sales calls and have those boring sales meetings but get to do some fun stuff as well.
Sarah: Oh, that's cool. Exciting. If you hadn't gone into that role, what do you think you would be doing? Had you thought about your future career?
Gina: Yeah. I mean the dream, I guess for a lot of bartenders is to have your own place at some point. And let me tell you that is a hard dream. I know I've watched you guys and it's like even working closely with people like Adam Neal and Jason, it's stressful to watch sometimes.
I was unsure where if I was to open somewhere. I didn't know if New Zealand was the place that I wanted to open a bar because of the cost and the difficulties and the licensing. I've never really been around it in the UK, or I guess even in Australia. I'd never really witnessed an opening of a venue, but it seems so stressful here with council and payments and it just seems one thing after the other.
Sarah: Yeah, it really is. What is one thing you wish you knew when you were starting out in hospitality?
Gina: Probably that hard work does pay off. I find if you want to stay in hospitality and that is your career path. You do need to work hard yourself, not necessarily even in the hours that you're rostered, but in your own time. You need to put in a lot of work, you need to study up, you need to go to masterclasses. You need to go to tastings, even just mixing and with other hospitality to go look at other bars.
There's so much that you can do in your own time to level up. You can't just expect to be like, oh I'm not rostered on. So I'm not going to do anything. You need to work hard to even just network. Like learning everything about the industry and the hard work will pay off for sure. Oh my God.
Sarah: This is a perfect soundbite and I'm going to give it to all of my staff. We were just talking about this two days ago.
Gina: I find it wild these days. I put on a lot of trainings in general where anyone's welcome. Trainings and masterclasses. And some, I'm a nag. I will message people when I organize it, giving them the date.
Sometimes it's a bit too far ahead to book time off or, you know, they haven't got their roster yet. So the week before, another message from me. Are you coming? And then the day before, reminder tomorrow. And then there's a wake up call. Are you coming? Even then the turnout isn't always amazing.
I feel like if I didn't do all the nagging it would be even worse, for sure. A lot of the younger bartenders might not even see the benefit in the moment. But even if you've tried those products before you're going to learn something, you're going to meet someone there. You'll benefit from something. 100%.
Sarah: I was just talking to somebody else yesterday and we were talking about how important it is, not just what you know, but who you know. All of those events when you're meeting other hospitality people is so important. It will literally advance your career by just knowing the right people and having a good relationship with them and being the person that shows up to events.
Gina: You always have the same ones that show up, and I know I can rely on those people, I know they're going to be there. There's always the ones that rock up five minutes late, even ten minutes late, but at least they come. Even if you're running late, don't worry.
People will always wait for a bartender. The start time is always 20 minutes after. I think just show up, learn anything, meet someone. There's always something you can gain from just showing up. 100%.
Sarah: What is the best lesson that you've been taught or words of wisdom you've been given?
Gina: I guess first working in bars would be just to be tidy. When I was working in Sydney, I was working at Palmer and Co, which is a very high-volume cocktail bar. A lot of people at one point used to call it bartender bootcamp because that's where you go. You learn all your classics pretty quickly because you get asked for obscure drinks. Quite often.
I worked with one French guy, one or two Aussies, and then about nine Italians. I honestly got my ass whipped into shape by these Italians for not being quick enough. One, if I'd chuck my tins in the sink and go do something else.
There was one time I remember, I had a docket and I was on dispense. I had a docket for 10 whiskey sours and I was still pretty new at this point. I was working out how to put these all up. And it got to the point where the first ones I'd put up were starting to look a bit shit compared to the last ones I put up.
And my bar manager at the time was just like, do it again. I was like, all of it?
I learned to take that extra 10 seconds or, you know, extra 30 seconds to do it right the first time. And then it'll be better in the long run.
There's no point in rushing it and fucking it up. Just take that extra 30 seconds to do it perfect and have it all come up nicely. That was probably a big lesson for me, actually. Those Italians will whip you into shape. Oh my gosh. I'm grateful for it. They were all a lot of fun.
And eventually when I was actually pretty good, we became very good friends. Just had to earn the respect.
Sarah: Who do you think is one to watch in the New Zealand bar or beverage industry?
Gina: Any of the above. There's a couple in mind. It's hard to pick just one. There's a couple of bartenders, a guy called Harry Huxley, who has been running the bar at Candela the last maybe a year or two. A British guy, really lovely, super knowledgeable, always putting up amazing drinks and beverage lists and whatnot.
He's actually moving on soon to a new place that's opening in Parnell called Twofold. From what I gather, they're going to be brewing their own beer and very food focused. He's going to be the venue manager there, which is cool.
There's also Aroha Jakicevic. She's sort of the heir to Glengarry, that's what I always describe her to people. She, obviously being family of the Glengarry lot, is already super knowledgeable. She has all these connections. She's big into her whiskey. She's always doing educational things.
She's obviously more on the off-trade side of things, but she's very good at connecting to the consumer. She bridges that gap between trade and consumer, and showing consumers that it's not just the big brands that are delicious but also the niche ones, especially when it comes to whiskey. I know Jim Beam's the number one whiskey or something in New Zealand, which, it has its rights. But showing there are other brands that you can drink.
There's a few in Wellington as well, and up in Auckland too. We have Arish, who's the bar manager at QT, he's doing really cool things. He's always getting involved and entering things like that.
These are all the humbler ones who don't necessarily shout out about how good they are. And they're not always trying to get their name out there, but I think they should. They deserve the credit too, absolutely.
Then there's also a guy called Luke who works at Daphne's in Ponsonby. He's always putting up awesome drinks lists. It's the ones that aren't really reaching out. They're pretty humble and they're pretty happy staying at the sidelines and not shouting out how good they are. So we can shout out about them for them.
Sarah: What is one trend you want to see more of and one trend you want to see less of?
Gina: More I'd like to see would probably be more agave trends. I'm a big agave lover, tequila, mezcal, all of it. I'm really excited to see more of the agave spirits, like how Australia is starting to produce agave.
There's lots of talk at the moment who say you could only make tequila in Mexico. You can't make it elsewhere. But really, I think Australia has the perfect terrain for it. So it might not be tequila, it might not be mezcal, but I'm really excited to see the agave spirits that they do produce, and I hope that they're done well.
Trends I want to see less of, I guess just the boring, cheap cocktail bars that you have, who are all about quantity, not quality. There's so many of them. Wellington's the prime example of that. Every time I go down I have my key accounts that I love and you know who are always doing cool things. Then there's larger groups I'll say, who just don't care about the quality of what they're putting up as long as they can sell 14 cocktails, which are full of sugar and consumers still go for it.
I think there's also a problem with that though. It teaches people this is what to expect and you can pay 14 for a cocktail. So when somebody comes into a venue like ours and the cocktails are 20, which is cheap for what we're serving, but we can't charge more than that where we are at, they just freak out because it's so expensive. They're used to seeing that low price somewhere else.
But realistically, the low price is because there's probably only a shot in there. So they don't quite realize the difference in quality. I'd like to see less of these larger venues taking over and producing low quality products.
Sarah: Favourite dish to eat at the end of a hard day?
Gina: I was talking to Chris about this and it's a tough question. I love eating and experiencing new stuff all the time. I can't have the same meal more than twice a week. I try and do the food prep thing cause it's good for time but I can only really eat a meal twice in one week.
Otherwise, I get bored. If we're going out and getting a good feed, the Smash Burgers at Broken Lantern are delicious. Or if it's winter time, there's a place called Ramen Takara. I don't know if you've heard of it. That's on Ponsonby Road. The tan tan, delicious.
There's a newer place, they've probably been open for eight months or so, in Westmere called Ragtag. They call themselves unauthentic Mexican. They do a lot of dishes that they serve with these duck fat tacos that is just amazing. They do this leg of lamb, and they do prawn tostadas and just really, really good food. They focus on quality for sure. It's so good.
Sarah: Favourite cocktail or drink you've been served?
Gina: My favourite cocktail is a classic Tommy's margarita, to be honest, you can't go wrong with it.
I was thinking about drinks I've been served, and I'll shout out to Callum Ireland who is the bar manager at Parasol and Swing. He has made me the best Tommy's margarita I've ever had. Every time I go back to Parasol, if Callum is working, I’ll ask if I can have a Tommy's.
I don't even know why, to be honest. But she also made me a really banging Tommy's margarita where she added just a bit of manzanilla for that really nice salinity, mineral taste to it. And that was banging as well. Five mils or something of a manzanilla in your Tommy's. Delish.
Sarah: Favourite venue in New Zealand and why?
Gina: This is also a very tough one because I have so many favourites. It's hard to pick just one, especially now when I'm looking after Wellington and Auckland, there is a little bit of a rivalry there. There's a new place in Wellington called Dee's Place. I've heard of them from not just yourself, but other people that I've talked to as well.
TK is one of the owners. He used to work in Sydney. I believe he worked at the Baxter Inn, but I'm not 100% sure. They've opened Dee's Place, which is like a saloon-esque American whiskey bar. It's a blend of Shady Pines and Baxter Inn both in Sydney.
They do the awesome whiskey and fresh apple thing. They only really have five cocktails on the menu at a time. They'll write them on the chalkboard and I think sometimes change them daily. Then they have a most wild range of American whiskeys from your standard pricing to all the rarest stuff. The Pappies and the rare Mitcher’s and stuff like that. Really cool bar. One of my favourites.
But then there's also Crumpet in Wellington who I love as well. They're always coming up with quirky menus and changing it quite frequently. Dan, who runs it, is a really big advocate for training and getting hospitality involved in things.
Wellington cocktail club gets together once a month. Sometimes it's every six weeks. We'll do a fun cocktail competition and he'll get a brand. I've only been to one or two of them because I haven't been down, but he's always putting on fun things to get people a bit more confident at public speaking and doing these little comps. So if they do want to enter a big one, they've got this sort of experience.
Sarah: That's cool. Is there anything like that in Auckland?
Gina: Not really at the moment, but I feel like there should be, and I haven't looked at a starting one. I don't want to just steal the idea from Dan, but I might have to. Because I think there's a really good community in Christchurch, like hospo community in Christchurch.
Sounds like there's a pretty good one in Wellington, and then Auckland's just super split and spread out. There doesn't seem to be a, maybe I like something like that, it's something that I like to do thing. Anyway, it wouldn't have to be too serious. It's always just on a Sunday, having a few drinks and coming up with something random. It doesn't have to be thought of beforehand. You can think of something on the day. We did that plenty when I was younger and in Auckland and we'll just do ones in the region. And the prize was a bottle of whatever the spirit was that you had to make it with, nothing too serious, but so much fun. We'll look into doing more like that.
Then there's also Panacea, which obviously being really close to Danny and seeing his dreams come true. And he's put in not even just dreams. He's put in so much hard work to that venue. Extra things on his plate and he's going to grow and grow. He's probably one to watch as well, to be fair.
He's just so humble as well. He will just give all his knowledge to all of his staff and he'll give all the limelight to the staff. He doesn't want the limelight or people being like Danny's the best. Danny's the one to watch, but he is low key. Will want to watch him because of the people who work for him. He'll put his all into them and really help them shine through his venue.
Sarah: You can tell if somebody's a good boss by the people that they have working for them as well. I think if you find a way to wrap everyone up in your vision, then get them on board, you’ll attract really talented people.
Gina: Yes. He has Cal Ross working for him now and he's got Ryan. I'm not sure Ryan's last name, but they've been the newest additions to the team. They used to work at Caretaker and Deadshot and Parasol. Even watching those two growing even more since they've started with Danny is great.
Sarah: What is the most in the weeds you've ever been?
Gina: There was actually one day at Parasol when the America's Cup was on, the last one. 2021? You never know when the final is going to be. What day it's going to fall on when it comes towards the end. It all really depends very much on points. It was either going to be on the Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday, depending on the point system.
It was really hard to work out a roster because you obviously needed everyone being right on the water. You needed everyone on the final days, but if it wasn't the final day, then, it would be the next day. And it ended up falling on St. Patrick's Day. The final of the America's Cup mixed with St. Patrick's Day.
Sarah: Oh, no!
Gina: It just combined two groups of people, the Irish or anyone celebrating with any type of Irish family history, or just wanting to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, and all your boaties. You know, your rich people who love all the boat and America's Cup and also Americans combined together.
I'm pretty sure I was on the open that day. And we had a rough day the day before. It was starting at 9am, getting ready to prep 20 litres of lemon and lime juice. I remember maybe 2am and just running out of all citrus, all everything. People still wanting cocktails, still wanting things and just juicing to order in a high volume.
It was just tough. It was a rough day. That's a long shift too. It was, I don't know how, we struggled so much for staff. Maybe it was just that point. It's always a struggle for staff.
Sarah: Yes. It was post COVID as well, right?
Gina: Yeah. It was really hard to find staff for anyone. That is true.
Sarah: What change would you like to see in New Zealand hospitality?
Gina: I think since COVID, and I'm sure a lot of other industries are like this, there's a gap between the real experience, those who have actually stayed in the industry, and then the newbies who are just starting off and probably not sure whether that's going to be a career or whether it's just going to be a part time thing while they study. But there's not much of those in between.
I guess there was that three year gap of people either leaving the industry or people who stayed who are now here. But there were no newbies in that period. I think it will take a little while, but we need to work out a way to bridge that gap and help the older ones who are not necessarily older. The more experienced ones really need to work on helping the ones who are learning and show them that it can be a career. A lot of the time I found that working in hospitality isn't seen as a career. It's seen as, oh, what are you doing as well? That's always the question where you're like, you know, this is my job. This is my full-time job and this is what I plan on doing.
Sarah: I forgot because when I moved to Australia and then came back and people started asking me that every shift and it drove me insane. It was really demoralizing.
Gina: Absolutely. And you know, in Australia, there's always that comparison to Australia, that it is a career there.
And people go into their forties, fifties, still in the industry, still enjoying it. It's, a community and there's always something new and exciting happening. Whereas, it’s a bit of a struggle in New Zealand. I don't know whether it's the wages, they just don't want to work hard enough or there's not enough exciting things happening. I would like to see more people who are career driven for the industry and who want to help it grow.
Sarah: Same. It's another reason that we're putting on NZBC.
Gina: Yes. And this is going to help people realize that it can be an industry that you can build a career on.
Sarah: What is something you would like to see at NZBC this year?
Gina: I think attendance is what I want to see. Mainly for people to show up. Like I said, if you show up, you can learn something, you can meet someone, you can gain something from just showing up. I think when a lot of people in the industry, no matter what your role is, whether you're just coming in, you're a sales rep, a brand ambassador, or you're a bar owner who might not even work on the bar anymore, anyone should come. Just show support and show your staff or your peers that coming and getting involved will be more fun, you know?
Sarah: Definitely. Hospo horror story, or funny story?
Gina: This is one that I was trying to think of and there's so many. I was trying to think of more funny customer interactions and a funny one came up. I was working in a venue and there was a DJ who had a bit of a stalker issue. It was quite serious it seemed, so they said we need you guys to help us.
Catch the stalker. Well, not necessarily catch them, but if they come in, we need you to help tell them to leave. They said he looked like an old man in his 60s. There's old men in their 60s. They all look pretty similar to be honest. This old guy comes in and we're like, is this the guy?
And they said, we're not a hundred percent. We've actually only seen photos of this guy. We've not seen him in person. So we're not a hundred percent, but this is his name. And I'm like, okay, so am I supposed to just ask his name? They're like, maybe ask for his ID? I was like, okay. So this guy asks if he can get a lager, please?
And I'm like, yes, can I see your ID, please? The look I had back from this man who's well in his 60s asking for ID is just, he's baffled. But he gives me his ID and unfortunately it was not the stalker, so it just made it even more hilarious that this guy is getting ID'd for no apparent reason.
Sarah: That's so uncomfortable.
Gina: It was pretty uncomfortable, but looking back at it now, it was pretty hilarious because I was obviously the one nominated to do the IDing.
What if he didn't even have his ID with him? Do you need your ID if you're 60? I don't know? Surely not. If you look under 25, right? I still get ID'd and I don't look under 25 anymore. I still get ID'd and I don't mind it. It's all good.
Sometimes I do though. I got refused service last year when I had Ludo with me and my mum. Oh my gosh. And then they wouldn't serve my mum either. So this is my baby. This is my mother. If I was her age, you would serve her. That's a whole other thing.
New Zealand supermarkets, always supermarkets. They're super difficult. Tough. It's pretty rough. Now I go to Pak’ n Save. They'll sell me a bottle of wine.
Sarah: Cool! Anything else to add? That's all my questions. I feel like all your questions were answered with all the cocktail comps happening at the moment, which is really exciting.
Gina: That's another thing with the cocchi comp that we're putting on at the moment. Not the wildest prize, as we're not the biggest company that has the biggest budget. So, this is our first cocchi comp in New Zealand. I basically wanted to go back to the brand and show them how many people got involved. To show the level of people that got involved so we can show brands moving forward that New Zealand is worth including in your global comps. New Zealand should be included a lot more.
Sarah: Definitely. Yes, Australia is a lot bigger. There's still a lot of talent here and people who want to get involved. Any global competition, if you could just include little old New Zealand, please. We talk about this all the time because Andrea really wants to enter world class, but it doesn't come to New Zealand anymore.
Gina: A lot of competitions don't, but it's cool to see people getting involved. I do feel it's quite often the same people that get involved in cocktail comps. Last year, Flor de Cana for example, there were more people entered from New Zealand than Australia. So that's interesting to see.
Sarah: How many did you get in the end? Did you get a good turnout for the cocchi comp?
Gina: There was 27, which I was pretty happy with. And that didn't require too much nagging from me either. I was kind of aiming for around 30-ish and I would be happy. So 27 was pretty good considering that the prize wasn't that wild. It wasn’t Italy or anything as exciting.
I decided rather than giving one person a prize or, a cash fund or something like that, I wanted to do a prize for a group of people. The six finalists, we're going to take to Martinborough and do an Italian themed outing for a couple of days in Wellington. The prize is more the couple of days experience in Martinborough.
We made sure that we're going to get to Auckland to Wellington and two regions. Whether that's the size of Napier or anything, we are making sure to get a mix of people in the final. Exciting. I think that also goes back to the networking thing, that prize.
Sarah: If you have six people, they're going to have this story that they come away from and they’ll talk about it rather than just going to a competition final. That's really fun and everything, but you don't have the same experience. Whereas those six people are going to be the biggest champions of cocchi afterwards as long as it all goes well.
Gina: Exactly. They'll make a connection with each other as well after spending a couple of days like that together. They’ll learn a little bit about each other, might find similar interests, and being bartenders, there'll probably be similar interests. They'll maybe go travel to where this person works and they'll go see them in their bars, building the community. I've always loved that about cocktail comps. I don't particularly like, well, I actually loved competing in them, but I hated making the cocktail. I like doing the presentation and hanging out with people and the socializing part, but coming up with the cocktail is just not my strong suit.
Never was. It was always naming the drink. It was hard to come up with something that's not super tacky, right? Some names I've found a few people use song names or movie references to come up with a few cool names that way.
Sarah: You just need to reach out to your witty friend. I don't know if I have one, but amazing. I think that's us. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.
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