Under The Grill

Simon Crowe always knew he wanted to run his own business - taking educational detours along the way, he’s on track to making the Grill’d name synonymous not only with guilt-free healthy burgers, but also a devoted workforce - By Cameron Bayley

Now on the way to building a national business from his solid foundation in Victoria, Simon Crowe can laugh about his early frustrations and mistakes, but he takes what they taught him very seriously.

Andrew Barlow, founder of successful online intelligence service Hitwise, once described him as the most frustrated entrepreneur he knew. Crowe happily admits it took 10 years, five business ideas (including pet insurance, an energy drink, car washing) and time overseas before bringing his baby, the Grill’d chain of burger restaurants, to fruition.

"I was completely fearful about establishing a food business because that’s not my background or my experience," he admits, revealing a cautionary side that’s not usually part of the entrepreneur’s vocabulary. However, while working as international brand manager for Foster’s, a job he partly took so he could travel and find some business ideas to bring home, he witnessed what he calls the "rise of burgers" in countries such as the United Kingdom and New Zealand, as well as their constant place in the diet of many Americans. He soon realised there was a niche in Australia for a healthy hamburger option.

He called on two young chefs he knew to find the right product. The process to find something traditional, yet unique, would make many envious, taking place "over many, many weekends with myself and many mates drinking beers and eating food. It was just fantastic," he laughs. But it wasn’t just an excuse to pig out. "A lot of it was just me trying to figure out what taste profiles I wanted," he explains. "So that we are in fact considered and positioned as an expert in healthy burgers."

The end results have gone down very well with Melbourne consumers, a tough crowd already spoilt for choice in the city of cafes. After opening in 2004 there are now nine locations in the chain, three of which are franchises, and Crowe expects there to be 15 Grill’d stores running by the end of the year. "We have a solid foundation now, so the responsibility’s ours to take what we have and grow it in a controlled fashion."

Crowe says the desire to run his own business has always been in his blood. Watching his father work in a pharmacy all his life, he says there was really never any other option. "I’d seen the way his business operated, I saw him as a business owner, and I assumed that to be what I’d eventually do." At the same time, however, he knew he didn’t just want one store, he wanted to grow something larger