About Us

Our Owners

We started this restaurant on Friday 24th March 2019 after being asked by the St Leonards
Bowling Club to lease their kitchen. I got the approach on  the afternoon of Tuesday 21st.
The business proposal was written in 2 hours and accepted 1 hour later.  Kanitha, Jeab and I
then set forth to plan and write a menu, source supplies and have them on site, register the
business and get all the necessary permits as well as promote our opening night. Then we
had to get too hand making our entrees and prepping all the ingredients. All completed in 3
days.

One hour before opening we had around 50 people booked in to dine and based on what
the bowling club kitchen had done in the past, we thought that was a good start. Well 50
people booked but we ended up with many more walk-ins that we didn’t expect and most
definitely didn’t want to turn away. So with 2 woks, 1 experienced cook and 1 learning plus
3 volunteers all working their butts off, we got it done! but not until some time after
midnight. What an eye opener. Night 2, pretty much the same thing but with slightly less
chaos.

We had the privilege of working within the bowls club kitchen for 4 very successful years but
felt like we couldn’t grow much more than what we had in that time so it was time to
pursue greener pastures.
An offer was put to us in July 2023 to purchase The Little Mussel Cafe in Portarlington and
we closed our operation at the bowl club and moved into the Mussel Cafe in late August of
that year. Unfortunately for us, after working for the Mussel Cafe for 4 months, we could
not secure the “Sub Lease” for the premises thus the sale fell through.

Early 2024 after visiting Port Kebabs at the Kingston Village Shopping Centre, we were
informed that several locations within the centre were available for rent. After 4-5 months
of negotiations with the centre management, we were ready to get the ball rolling on taking
on shops 17 & 20. The original agreements were written up in June 2024 but with countless
delays and hiccups, our opening didn’t happen until December. A couple of weeks before
Christmas.

In this new location we have increased the varieties on the menu and we have our own
liquor licence. What we haven’t changed is the quality and freshness of our food. All meals
are still made to order from the freshest of ingredients. We still insist on friendly “old
fashioned” service and treating our customers like family.