Business owners share some desires with artists. They start businesses because they’re perfectionists. Control freaks. They hope to dictate forms of expression, without compromise. They want freedom. But the urge to HAVE a business is different than the DOING of business. The doing requires us to breathe life into something that might not respond to our control. Why? Because the … Read More >>
At Wandering Cooks, we care so much about what meat our world eats. Why? It feels almost droll to say, because it’s been said so many times before. Fuck it I’ll say it anyway… most meat is produced in utter, mind blowing cruelty. And every individual’s buying decisions either support or reject this cruelty. There is too much suffering, too … Read More >>
As my search for another venue begins, I think back to when I was first hatching my business dreams 7 years ago. Back then, I wasn’t dreaming up an incubator like Wandering Cooks. I wanted a cafe, a garden, a meeting place, a community, a food production space, but not an incubator exactly. Mathew (my loving partner who I love … Read More >>
I need to be careful not to mention Melbourne and leaving Fish Lane in the same page (whoops did it again). Let me be clear – I really do want to continue Wandering Cooks in Brisbane. Yes, sometimes I do imagine it in other cities, but I have no intention of abandoning the Brisbane project in the process. The response … Read More >>
Walking through Melbourne, the brick walls are dense with their stories. I don’t know them. The small square at the top of the street emptied of activity doesn’t seem to be for me either. Houses already occupied, gates locked. Warehouses already converted, opportunity already taken. Businesses everywhere, already with a foothold, an audience, a neighbourhood who already loves them. Why … Read More >>
The day is done. I thought there’d be more to it than one long pouring of morning into midday into afternoon, punctuated less by meetings than their interruption. Let’s break there and find each other in a month. I don’t mind this kind of conclusion. It recognises the open-ended building of business well enough, and leaves me room to reformulate … Read More >>
We do a lot of tasks here every week: serve booze, make coffee, clean tea towels, open doors, water gardens, put out menus, clean toilets, order supplies, enter receipts… Tasks are knowable, recordable and replicable. Business is made up of thousands of tasks like these, held by various staff who expect to do them. That’s part of their job, to … Read More >>
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