Story by Cara Devine. Cara is our Melbourne-based drinks writer. She is the manager of Bomba in Melbourne and the face and talent behind the cocktailing YouTube channel Behind the Bar. You can email her at behindthebarchannel@gmail.com
If you live in or have visited Sydney recently, chances are you’ve frequented a Mucho venue. Starting with Tio’s Cerveceria and The Cliff Dive nightclub in the early 2010s, the group’s venues have become a defining part of our capital’s nightlife. Whether you’ve pulled up to the psychedelic-galaxy bartop at Bar Planet to savour a martini, squeezed yourself into the single-car-park sized Cantina OK! for a mezcal or checked out their latest, ‘the centre of our new tequila universe’, Centro 86 – you’ll have had an experience. That experience, while undeniably augmented by the incredible fit-out and concept of each venue (and the drinks, of course!), will have been created by the staff. Always friendly and enthusiastic, it is clear that these are happy bartenders.
This speaks to a structure and team culture which promotes a healthy work environment. So, I spoke to two key players in the Mucho management team – Daisy Tulley, Group General Manager and Rocky Hair, Group Operations Manager. As Tulley says, “We have just hit 70 employees. We have a waitlist at nearly every venue. I keep saying recently, ‘It feels like everyone wants to work at Mucho’. It makes me feel so proud that we’ve built a culture that a lot of people want to be a part of.” So, how do they do it?
It’s easier than you think, says Hair. “The changes we are trying to make and continue to work towards for a healthy workplace culture are not big, challenging or anything crazy – it’s literally just aiming for longevity in employment by logical practice. Not expecting anything upwards of 40 hours a week, promoting a four-day work week, listening and engaging in active conversation with staff and caring on a personal level. Providing progression, training and entertainment, too, it’s team building, and we’ve really seen all the venues getting closer to each other in the past 12 months. I also think having solid management in the venues is incredibly supporting to this culture too, my expectation of them is to be human at all times – good hospitality is not robotic.” Hair herself has an impressive resume in hospitality, with stints at Swillhouse and the Lyan group in the UK as well as working for Archie Rose. Being immersed in hospitality from a young age has informed her approach now. “I think having personally lived and worked in a way that wasn’t sustainable, despite wanting a career in hospitality, it has pushed me to fight for others not to have to do the same. Being in a position now where I can finally influence this is massive.”
“We have just hit 70 employees. We have a waitlist at nearly every venue. I keep saying recently, ‘It feels like everyone wants to work at Mucho’. It makes me feel so proud that we’ve built a culture that a lot of people want to be a part of.” – Daisy Tulley
Tulley, on the other hand, does not come from a hospitality background, instead “falling into the business” through a marketing role for The Cliff Dive after a career in entertainment. However, she feels this has given her perspective. “Challenge what the standards currently are and try to do it better or do it differently. I think it was so powerful I wasn’t originally from hospitality. I came in with fresh eyes and wasn’t influenced by the hospitality ‘norm’.” She prefers instead to rely on her own “moral compass”. “The amount of stories I hear about management in hospitality treating their employees because that’s how they got treated I find distressing. You can do better and you can change the way of leadership in this industry.” This includes ensuring that staff aren’t working too much (a personal mission of Hair’s), that they take time away, getting creative with roles that lean into individual strengths to promote progression, and regularly checking in – but making sure those meetings are scheduled for times that suit the staff.
Despite having multiple venues, their approach doesn’t vary too much between them, excepting The Cliff Dive, says Tulley. “The only venue that is very different in a lot of ways and that we do struggle to bring under the Mucho umbrella at times is our RNB & Hip Hop club. For instance our ‘MUCHO New Staff Training’ goes through agave knowledge and emotional tasting, not applicable to the staff at The Cliff Dive at all. We create different trainings for the staff there. But keep in the mind Cliffy staff are always welcome to learn more, we want them to feel included, we have moved a lot of The Cliff Dive staff into our other venues. [Multiple staff] at Centro 86 all came from The Cliff Dive, it’s amazing watching them progress and change through the venues.” For Hair, “Anything we’ve tried to implement has been across the group – as much as their offering may be different from a guest perspective we have heaps of cross-pollination of staff across all of them and it would only be fair to set the standards across the board.” This sense of allowing people to grow and find their niche within a well thought out structure has stood them in good stead in increasingly difficult trading conditions. As Tulley puts it, “we put the right people in the right seats”, both in management and in venue.
“I also think having solid management in the venues is incredibly supporting to this culture too, my expectation of them is to be human at all times – good hospitality is not robotic.” – Rocky Hair
With this in mind, do they feel that being women in their seats has had a positive impact on the culture? Absolutely, says Hair. “Although Jeremy [Blackmore] and Alex [Dowd] [founders of Mucho Group] are still very much at the helm here too, I actually think it was a bit of a culture shock to some of the teams when we came on… Overall, though, I think it’s been incredibly positive, and it’s pretty obvious that it has attracted a lot more women and gender-diverse people to the business. I think it’s taken down a bias-barrier in allowing young women to be given the opportunity to be taken seriously at their jobs, especially in management.” Tulley agrees. “I think it’s been absolutely amazing for Mucho. Not only do women feel safe at Mucho, but they also feel heard. But also the men do too, we haven’t forgotten about them! I think women have amazing intuition and a level of empathy that is so crucial in management. It has created happier teams, happier people and a healthier and happier company.”
All in all, “it’s not rocket science; it’s just a genuine care for our teams,” says Tulley. And it’s true — it’s not rocket science, but it does matter. If the successes and staff retention of the Mucho venues are anything to go by, we should all take note.
For more on MUCHO., links to all their venues, job vacancies and more, check out their website here: muchogroup.com.au