Unley’s Spread Delicatessen & Bar is looking to open for evening drinks while doing its bit to lift hospo culture.
Just when CityMag assumed the sando craze in Adelaide had peaked, in came the crew from Bar Lune, Fettle and Dolly with their new Spread catering to every sandwich craving.
Spread is located just behind Dolly off Unley Road, and has made a conscious effort to bring quality sandos to the east – and plans to transform into a wine bar by night.
Plans to introduce the wine bar stem from needing an overflow space for their popular Dolly venue next door.
Co-owner Sam Worrall-Thompson describes it as becoming “a pre and post-dinner spot”.
“With Dolly next door, we’re full most Friday, Saturday nights, and when we turn people away after they’ve finished dinner we’ve got nowhere for them to go,” he says.
However, right now Sam and his fellow partners Tom James-Wallace and Tony Bayles are focused on the beauty of their sandwiches after opening their deli early this month.
“A big part of the venue is we wanted to make sure this space was appropriate for a nighttime venue as well, so making sure that the move is correct for daytime,” Tony says.
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“If you walked in here in the middle of the day or for breakfast, you would feel comfortable, but also if we removed some furniture… [and] it’s nine o’clock at night, it also felt like it wasn’t a café.”
Prepping CityMag’s number seven
The crew acknowledges that since sandwiches are all the rage at the moment they decided to jump on the bandwagon, but Sam says their “quality of product” makes the ingredients between two slices of bread different from the rest.
“A lot of people use tuna out of a can for a tuna melt — we’re using Bonito which is $75 a kilo. It’s the Rolls Royce of a tuna sandwich,” Sam says.
“As long as the customer is happy with the price, we’d love to maintain that — just use the best of the best.”
These quality ingredients are on show with Spread’s most popular menu item, the number seven, which is pictured below. It is effortlessly balanced with eggplant katsu, green and smoked tomato, Stracciatella and prosciutto.
Other menu items include house favourite toasties with cheese and caramelised pineapple, with a mix of freshies such as a roast porchetta with fennel and parmesan.
“We don’t want to go all deli meats [and] we don’t want to go all sort of American style — it’s trying to find a happy medium between naughty and nice,” Sam says.
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Sam says the experienced hospo team also has a goal to host young chefs to practise their craft.
“When we find our feet… we’ll get chefs in on a Thursday, we’ll run the front-of-house, we can help market it, and they can try a concept if they want before they go on and sign a lease,” Sam says.
“I think that’s probably the scariest part of hospitality, taking your first leap, so if we can support young up-and-coming chefs…”
Allowing young chefs to cook under their established brand name is their way of helping build a healthy and flourishing hospitality community in Adelaide.
“When I was starting out 10 years ago, I had my mentors and people that had done it before,” Sam says. “I think it’s nice to bounce off people and hopefully sort of make the food scene in Adelaide better by getting these young guys up and about.”
The happy Spread team from L—R: Holly Esplin, Ben Smith, Scott Schwarz, Tom James-Wallace, Sam Worrall-Thompson and Tony Bayles
Workplace culture is the Spread crew’s top priority. This is because the hospo life when this group was up and coming wasn’t as healthy as what they’ve built for their current team.
“We don’t talk about the early days,” Tony says, as Sam and Tom laugh.
“We took Fettle on really, to be honest, to get away from my previous business relationship — I was in a toxic business relationship,” Sam says.
By prioritising healthy workplace culture, Sam, Tom and Tony are all prepared to let their most experienced people move on to other gigs in order to maintain their businesses as fun and uplifting places to work.
“I think the team culture that we’ve built is probably our biggest driver moving forward,” Tony says.
“There’s always these great people in these great roles, but if it’s just not the right [fit], it doesn’t gel. That’s not our ethos — what we stand by.
“As soon as there is that toxic behaviour, or culture, you can feel it in every aspect of the business — customers start feeling it.”
Spread is located at 5/246 Unley Road, Unley and is open from 6:30am until 3pm from Monday to Friday, and 7:30am until 2:30pm on Saturday.
Connect with the business on Instagram for more.
Craving more hospo news and reviews? The 10th-anniversary edition of CityMag is on the street now. Check your local for copies.
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