Who is justin hemmes

Many of its restaurants are currently closed on Sunday. It was reminiscent of Sydney during the Olympics — just spine-tingling stuff.

Skip to navigation Skip to content Skip to footer Help using this website - Accessibility statement. Michael Bailey Rich List editor. May 28, — Save Log in or Subscribe to save article. Justin Hemmes with his father, John, in Oct 8, — 5. Save Log in or Subscribe to save article. Fiona Carruthers has written and edited travel for the Financial Review for almost a decade. Email Fiona at fcarruthers afr. License article. Follow the topics, people and companies that matter to you.

He is known for buying venues, giving them a high-end fit-out, improving the food — often with a known chef — then watching the money roll in. John and his wife Merivale started in fashion, but the company morphed into property and then hospitality when they opened a Thai tea cafe in Credit: Janie Barrett. Merivale now boasts more than 70 venues around the city, generally offering high-quality food and drinks at a mid-to-upmarket price point.

There are some outliers. There is no shortage of photos of the Merivale boss at parties, on yachts or surrounded by bikini-clad beauties.

RV: How would you describe Sydney? JH: For me, Sydney is such an exciting city. It's all about the outdoors and people really love life here. They love being happy; they love nature; they love swimming; they love the ocean. They love to have a good time; they love eating and drinking. They really embrace life here. We're generally very easy going. RV: What are some of the biggest challenges in running the Merivale group?

JH: One of the most challenging things is trying to maintain the quality and the standards that I expect when you're employing so many staff.

Our whole business is about staff. We have almost 2, customer-facing staff members. I can deliver an amazing meal in a beautiful surrounding, fantastic cocktails or a beautiful bottle of wine, but if the staff member is rude, everything is destroyed.

The challenge is to ensure that every single staff member that works for us delivers to our expectations, to the level of customer service that we expect and strive for.

We have amazing people working for us though, and we get a lot of reward and satisfaction out of it. RV: What would be your advice for the next generation of entrepreneurs? JH: The most important thing is that you have to love what you do, and to genuinely love it. You have to live and breathe it, because otherwise, there's no point in doing it. For me, my work and my business is a pleasure. I love to do this and I wake up every morning and get so excited to go to work, because I get to create something new, something that's going to hopefully improve people's lives in some way, or make their lives more exciting.

I'm very fortunate the industry I'm in is an exciting place to be. People come to our venues because they want to have fun. They're not coming to us because they need legal advice, because their wife's leaving them, or their business partner has done the wrong thing by them.

They're coming to us to celebrate, to have a good time and to feel good about themselves. The end goal is that I'll see our customers having the best time, and saying, or even thinking, "I've had a fabulous night tonight.

I've had a beautiful meal; I've met a wonderful person; I've had a great drink; or I've had a great time with my friends. Life is one big hurdle.

Sometimes you fall over, but you've got to pick yourself up and keep running. You just have to keep pushing. You've got to finish that race.