Jane Shaw Ingleside Bakery In November last year I sat down for a brief chat with Jane Shaw from the Ingleside Bakery. As our conversation progressed Jane began to share some of the story of how she and her husband Steve came to own this enchanting venue. The couple have been in the venue since 1990 and at 23 Jane took on a business that had no guarantees of success in possibly one of Tasmania's toughest economic times. 27 years later and the venue, Jane, Steve and her family are thriving. What’s the secret to their success? We asked Jane to give us the details of their fascinating journey. So Jane your accent stands out straight away and the story of how you have ended up in a café bakery in Evandale is fascinating. Could we trouble you to paint the picture for us all? Having grown up in Gloucestershire, England, my parents decided to sell their farm and move to Tasmania in 1985. As a 17 year old this was rather horrific news! However, I had no choice in the matter and was told that I must stay in Australia for two years. I worked as a personal assistant in Launceston and Sydney for that time and on the very day I had been here for two years I booked a one way flight back to England! Within weeks of arriving back home I met Steve, married him a year later and we spent a great three years together in Cheltenham. Then, following a visit here together to meet my family Steve voiced the very thoughtful but slightly crazy idea of us moving to Tasmania together! To do this we decided we would go into business as Steve had worked in the electronics manufacturing field which was not something he could do here. We both handed in our notice, sold our home, put everything into a container to make the big move and on arrival in March 1990 my father said that our timing was not good as the economy had entered a recession. Not good news. As we were here we said we would give it until December and if nothing suitable arose we would go back. We looked at various businesses in Launceston and Hobart but kept coming back to Ingleside which appealed to us, meanwhile I went back to my previous employer working with Robert Hosken on his developments. Ingleside had been set up as a charity and had been operating for about 18 months when we decided to purchase it, however borrowing a vast amount of money in uncertain economic times and close to the airport, shortly following the pilot’s strike, proved very difficult. All the banks declined our attempts until we were able to get funding through the Commonwealth Development Bank at 18.75 per cent. Neither of us had any experience at all in the hospitality industry, I was only 23 years old. We had taken an awful lot on but learnt very quickly! We had been promised a manager to assist us for a month in the sale agreement but that did not eventuate, neither were we left any purchasing contacts so the early days were difficult in the extreme living in a new country in a small country town who largely saw us as outsiders, with huge debts. We worked very long hours seven days a week.
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Hospitality Review
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