Welcome back to this week’s Boothby Sydney briefing. This week I’ve got a conversation with Michael Chiem, from PS40 in Sydney. MC — as Chiem is better known — has had the bar for 10 years now, and what I think is the most interesting piece of the conversation here is that the bar is busier today than it has ever been. 10 years in, MC says, when other bars have plateaued, PS40 is a better business and growing every year.
There are a couple of ways that has been achieved, he says — the chef takeover series is one of them.The other reason is that they have developed a roster of house drinks that guests come to know and love, and they focus on that rather than big new menu drops every other month. The focus is on the guest, not themselves, and not on creating PR moments.
Crazy, right?
And after the chat, we’ve got a quick look at a new Sydney bar — the first drinks-led venue from one of the city’s most successful restaurant groups.
Let’s get into it.
PS40 swung open its doors for the first time in 2016, and welcomed guests into a very different space to what they have today. Walking in then, you’d have seen a sleeker, more artsy, more uncomfortable space; a great big bottling line for their soda business was in place where you’ll find the kitchen today.
The bar was opened by Michael Chiem and Thor Bergquist, and quickly garnered attention from the trade and the public, picking up some early accolades, their innovative cocktails getting the attention of bartenders.
Bergquist sold up and took the soda business out of the bar in 2019, with Chiem becoming the sole owner of PS40.
Since then, as Chiem talks about in this interview, things have been on the up. He credits a renewed sense of focus with the intriguing fact that, despite having just turned 10 years old this year, the bar continues to grow in revenue year on year.
Below, he talks about how doing less has resulted in more growth, how he has evolved as a leader over the last decade, and why Covid actually became the catalyst for a new PS40, setting the foundations for the bar into the next decade.
We’re 10 years in, but we’ve only just started. There’s still so much yet to do.
BOOTHBY: Did you ever think PS40 was going to make 10 years?
MICHAEL CHIEM: Yeah, I never thought we’d wind up business before 10 years. You take every year as it comes, right? And every year here, thankfully, since just before Covid, we’ve seen a very slow, steady, upward growth.
BOOTHBY: What’s behind that?
MICHAEL CHIEM: Because we did the soda and the bar thing at the very beginning, I don’t think we dove into the market as hard as a lot of other bars had. So we might have had a few quiet nights in the first few years where it was a bit scary. And then these days, the norm is fairly justifiable and busy-ish. And we’re getting busier every year.
BOOTHBY: What was it in that period just before Covid that you think has led to that year on year growth?
MICHAEL CHIEM: Since 2019? So maybe, without me knowing it — until maybe this discussion — but focusing on less things has made one thing better. I think the bar was going right, to be fair, at that time in the year. But for me personally, not to have to worry about the soda production, when Thor took that off-site, he sold 50 percent of the bar to me. That triggered maybe a bit more motivation. I don’t think I was lacking motivation — maybe it was more time dedicated towards just growing the place and finding it a new identity.
It was going really well until obviously Covid hit, and then that gave it a new lease on life too, funnily enough.
BOOTHBY: Talk about that experience, because you’ve said that Covid was actually good for you in a way.
MICHAEL CHIEM: Well first and foremost, my landlord was nice. So many businesses had to pay back old rent. My landlord owns quite a few properties and a lot of them are in hospitality, so they were generous enough to pause rent while we couldn’t open, and then we negotiated a lease that allowed the business to come back to fruition. They helped businesses stay alive.
We were doing pretty well for delivery cocktails, a lot of people would say that we got in there first and that’s maybe what helped. That was because I was watching other bars around the world do that, and I was like, I’m just going to do it legally. And when we were allowed to, I already had the posters ready. We just jumped straight in as soon as it was actually legal for us to do so.
At first, in a very PS40-fashion, we started straight away with no foresight or in-depth discussion on how it’s all gonna work. I literally just started taking DMs. Who needs an ordering system or a website? Pete [Seabrook] thankfully is quite an IT wizard. He was like dude, you’re wasting so much time now.
So Covid was good for us in the sense that we stayed in contact with people. We stayed mentally and physically alive here as well and that also allowed me to take a little bit of extra time to reconsider the floor space. We were getting these government grants — where would I spend the money? Previously, in this space the seating was not as comfortable, so the first things that we focused on were things that customers could touch, the chairs and seats and lights.
We started to worry less about the intricacies of all the stainless steel, the refrigeration that a bartender gets to use, and more about the people paying your bills.
And then, we stopped changing the menu constantly.
BOOTHBY: Yeah, talk about that because that was a big change for you.
MICHAEL CHIEM: Yeah, we used to flip menus. We’d go delete all the drinks.
When we were in Covid mode, we made the menu six drinks, short, because I was the only one opening and closing. That’s where the slushie machine came in too.
And we started the [chef-focused] takeover Tuesdays and the first Tuesday that we did it, we thought, hopefully some people will come. And there was a good 30-something people here. And I said we’ll do Margaritas on arrival. It was just me and Pete, trying to run food, trying to wash the glasses. We told the chef, don’t worry about the plates, we’ll wash it. I broke so many glasses that night.
Then the next day, I put it out on Facebook: I need a slushie machine.
The idea was like, how many drinks can I do with so little to begin with? From there we grew.
BOOTHBY: So your drinks stick around on the menu now.
MICHAEL CHIEM: Drinks stick around on the menu. The ones that are popular will stay on for that reason. I think it’s a bartending trend in a lot of bars where for some reason, there needs to be new concepts, menus, new things — and hey, I was guilty of that as well at the very beginning.
BOOTHBY: I think that’s because if there’s a new menu, there are new things to talk about, and awards to win.
MICHAEL CHIEM: 100 percent. It was more like, okay let’s just focus on the people coming in and spending money. If we get an award that would be really nice. If we don’t, let’s just focus on the people in front of us. If people are loving the drinks, let’s not take them off. If a steakhouse stopped doing steak, it would be weird, right? So we kept some core classics and stopped changing so much stuff. And then in seasons we would put things back on. And it would be a nostalgic thing for a lot of people coming in. Coming into summer, the Mango Weiss Bar comes back on.
And I think from that, could you imagine if the Africola went off the menu? People are ordering it without even sitting down yet — they’re like, we’ll get three of those ones, they don’t even know what it’s called sometimes.
I wake up wondering what my life would be like if that drink never existed. People are proud to show their friends the drink, you know? And so they’re doing all the work for us quite often.
BOOTHBY: How do you think you have changed as an owner and a leader over those 10 years?
MICHAEL CHIEM: I was 26 or 27 when this bar opened, and I was very headstrong in terms of like, old school cheffy, because I came through that way. There’s still that in me to an extent, but I reckon it’s dialled down a lot. Some people who have worked with me in the past, who watch me now, when they have conversations with my current staff members, they’re like, this guy is so fucking chill. It’s like I’m smoking the pipe or something. I’m not that chill, I’m just maybe a little bit more aware of my surroundings. I still don’t hesitate to crack it if I need to. But I don’t think it’s necessary all the time.
Having kids was probably the biggest change in my life. So Matt Blackburn joined just before my daughter Willow was born, and we hired him as the bar manager. My idea was that, when Willow is born I’ll do a lot of things during the day and then around her bedtime I can at least come into PS40 at 7pm, and finish at 11 or 12. And for the first month the team just had it, and I let go a little bit. That allowed me to focus on growing the business rather than juicing lemons and limes and throwing out the bins at the end of night. And it was so nice hanging out with Willow in that first year. So many parents, especially dads, I don’t think will be able to say in the first month they didn’t do a service.
It allowed me to start thinking differently, because I was no longer constantly in service. Great for Carly too, as a family unit. She was prepared to obviously have me disappear all the time, so it was a nice surprise.
BOOTHBY: How have the Takeover Tuesdays been for PS40?
MICHAEL CHIEM: Takeover Tuesday has obviously got to be one of the biggest changes for us.
After Covid ended, we were reopening and had to have that weird one person per four square metres thing. And we could have 30 something people, every day was going really well. People were just desperate to go out. I thought, I’d be stupid not to open Tuesday. But I wanted to give someone an extra reason to come because I was worried Tuesday wasn’t the day.
Now, mathematically, I’d say we would be doing 20 takeovers a year, for the last five years.
It’s a really nice networking thing for the team, because every two Tuesdays, they meet a different chef, a different team. We worked alongside other people. You see different techniques.
Then psychologically, when the first day of your week should be quietest, it ends up being one of your busiest.
We get a nice combination of Takeover Tuesday regulars, PS40 regulars, random people and then the chef’s friends and colleagues so it’s a nice community. And I think through that we’ve been able to introduce a lot of people who have never been to PS40. They’ll come for the chef, and then they’ll be like, I’ve been to PS40 now.
BOOTHBY: And then they might come back.
MICHAEL CHIEM: Yes, and they do.
BOOTHBY: Do you have another 10 years here?
MICHAEL CHIEM: We’ve done 10 years, but I know this place will stay for another five to eight, maybe more. We’re 10 years in, but we’ve only just started. There’s still so much yet to do.
Sydney welcomed a new, vibey, red-hued drinking den to its streets last week, with the opening of Vespertine.
Vespertine is the first bar-focused venue from the Bentley Group (King Clarence, Eleven Barrack, Bentley Restaurant & Bar among others), with a focus on cocktails and food (along with the kind of quality wine list you’d expect from the group). For the fans of monkish liqueurs, there’s a Chartreuse Slushie on the list; the rest of the menu reads as a list focused on classics with additions and tweaks (a Toronto cocktail gets a maple syrup sweetener; their Negroni riff gets the addition of pomegranate and blackberry).
You can find Vespertine at 350 George Street in the Sydney CBD, and on Instagram at @barvespertine. They’re open seven days a week, from 5pm until late.
