Chris, Phil, Blake and Matt - Two Before Ten

It’s been a rocky road for Two Before Ten - a turbulent and challenging journey full of blood, sweat and tears to get the business where it is today.

‘It all began back in the year 2000…’ Chris grandly proclaims with a hearty laugh, passing around pints as we sit in the empty Ten Yards venue, adjacent to Two Before Ten in Aranda. Joining us are his three business partners, Blake, Matt and Phil.

Chris was working in the public service when his friend bought a waterfront pub in Belconnen - today known as Lighthouse. Chris and his mates soon began working at the Lighty, and it was here that Chris met a young man named Jarrod Deaton. Working together at Lighthouse, it wasn’t long before the pair began to excitedly discuss the prospect of running their own bar, having fallen in love with the lifestyle and environment. And thus, the idea of starting a hospitality venture was born.

In 2008 the pair decided to branch out on their own, and, realising coffee as a product was blowing up, secured a space on Marcus Clarke Street where they opened Enter Cafe. Chris fondly recalls the early days of their little espresso bar, reminiscing on being the ‘cool kids’ with the hip little cafe in the city.

Over the next few years Enter Cafe saw great growth, becoming a favourite of those in the city area - including Matt, a frequent patron not yet involved with the business. In 2011 Jarrod and Chris rebranded, launching Two Before Ten. Chris recalls how Jarrod, ‘a freak at developing brands’ had been paying close attention to the emerging coffee industry in Sydney, Melbourne and overseas. This prompted the two to begin their own roastery. ‘There was lots of experimenting to get it right,’ Chris remembers. In 2012, Chris finally resigned from the public service, and the two began roasting for themselves.

In 2013, Phil - formerly training to become a schoolteacher, but quickly succumbing to the allure of hospitality - took over managing Two Before Ten to enable Chris and Jarrod to focus on a new venture. The pair’s eyes had fallen to a space in the New Acton precinct, where they began working on a new venue distinct from Two Before Ten.

2013 would turn out to be an all-over-the-place kind of year for the team, also seeing their first foray into a pop-up restaurant called Ten Yards, focusing on regional produce and stocking Australian spirits. Though short-lived, the project would serve as inspiration for the future and helped finance the New Acton venue that suffered long delays.

At the tail end of 2013 Jarrod and Chris opened A.Baker, or ‘the pie shop’ as Canberra would grow to know it. Before long A.Baker ‘went gangbusters’ - but somehow never seemed to turn a profit. Blake, having just started at university and looking for a part-time job, began working at A.Baker. With a keen eye for detail, Blake quickly brought to attention how poorly the place was being run, and soon became bar manager. Blake and Chris grew quite close, as Blake remembers ‘we worked every single day in December together… you don’t see someone that much without getting to know them pretty well.’

In May of 2014, feeling that A.Baker wasn’t ultimately working for him, Chris parted ways with Jarrod and returned to Two Before Ten with Blake and Phil. Jarrod continued the business for several years, later calling it quits and going on to start a little bakery known as Three Mills.

By this time Blake had started his own successful software company, Pursuit Technology. Having decided that university had run its course, he dropped out and bought his share into Two Before Ten. ‘The concepts are really the same for a cafe and software engineering company,’ Blake explains, regarding the decision.

The trio were at a crossroads. It was time to shake things up, but another business didn’t seem the right move. With the Canberra House location closing for a refurb, their eyes began to wander out of the city and into the suburbs… ‘It was unheard of for a city cafe to move to the suburbs’ Chris notes, ‘but you had those successful places already, Little Oink… Fox and Bow.’ Phil chimes in ‘it was a completely different demographic here than the city… we were no longer the cool kids!’

In September of 2014, Two Before Ten opened as a coffee trailer by the Aranda shops. The shops - formerly hosting a butcher, real estate, post office, framing store, supermarket and dumpling house - would spend the next few months being redeveloped and transformed by the team. The venue was an enormous effort - but not one without vision. The idea was to turn the location into a morning-to-night attraction, bringing to life a cafe, roastery, restaurant, speak-easy style bar and even a yoga studio downstairs.

The kitchen, originally designed around existing plumbing, was soon realised to be unfeasible. The plumbing and electrical were in dire need of replacing due to fire damage the venue had endured in the years before. ‘It took about ten times longer than we expected, and just kept costing us money,’ Chris remembers. ’We would work 80, 90 hour weeks getting it all off the ground.’

One such week, having caught wind of the new cafe being built in Aranda, Matt walked in after footy training and announced that he wanted to get involved. A welcome help, Matt jumped on board with enthusiasm and has been a part of Two Before Ten ever since. That is - when he’s not travelling the country or globe playing football at an elite level.

Matt, a lifelong athlete, currently captains the Melbourne Rebels. His athletic career has provided him with extensive leadership training, as well as many other skills directly transferrable to business. He tells a story of a meeting he had with Blake, the two discussing a problem they had within the business, where he was able to draw parallels between the cafe and the World Cup campaign.

‘I don’t think it’s common for any cafe - or business - to have a group like this, with the knowledge from different backgrounds,’ comments Blake, as we discuss the eclectic, varied experiences of all partners. The four attribute their success to this unique mix of skill sets and perspectives, as well as the sheer determination from everyone involved.

By March 2015 Two Before Ten Aranda sported it’s own distinct, cosy look, the walls lined with books and furniture donated by locals. Phil looks fondly back on the early days of the Aranda venue, reminiscing on the way the community welcomed them. ‘Locals really felt like they were building something too… they could come in with their friends and point and be like, “oh, that’s my book!”’

This sense of community has always been a core value for Two Before Ten. The team all agrees that their key focus has always been quality of service. Chris explains ‘our greatest product is our service. Really, we all care more about people than we do about coffee or food… the customers are why we’re in business.’

The four spend the next little while detailing stories of how rough the next few years were for Aranda. Stories of partners coming and going, ‘abandoning ship’ to travel, throwing in the towel only to come back months later, internal conflict and the never-ending obstacles that just wouldn’t stop piling up. One notable story involves a brick finding its way into a pipe - the building’s deep, complex plumbing system meaning the problem wasn’t identified until weeks later, when business had to be shut down in order to fix the clog.

‘It could have gone pear-shaped at any number of points, but it didn’t… we’ve butted heads a lot, but I think because everyone knew where we’d come from, everyone had faith in each other,’ Chris expands. Blake, Matt and Phil nod their agreement, Phil explaining that for him, giving up was never an option. ‘We made every mistake to succeed, making it up as we went along… when we were in the shit, we buckled down, and a lot of people don’t.’

Blake interjects, ‘it might sound superficial to anyone who wasn’t there, but it was pretty bad. We didn’t really know what we were doing… we had $20,000 of banana bread debt!’ He goes on to speak to the resilience these challenges have instilled in all of them, adding ‘When something like COVID happens, and its chaos, it’s like well… we were sort of forged in chaos.’

In 2017, Chris returned from a 7-week tour abroad managing the Women’s Professional Cycling team the cafe sponsored. ‘As it always is after some time away, you see things with fresh eyes,’ recounts Chris. ‘Phil and I were standing on the hill one afternoon, and it occurred to me how much land we had that wasn’t being utilised.’

It was this realisation - combined with Phil’s passion for sustainability, and the sense they had done everything they could with coffee - that sparked the idea for the Urban Farm. Originally a veggie garden intended to provide for the kitchen, the low yield quickly saw Two Before Ten pivot the project to become a produce swap. Over time this idea grew into something larger, with Urban Farm manager Ingrid joining the team in 2019, developing products from the garden - relishes, pickled products, anything that could be transformed would be.

Chris and Phil laugh about the products and their packaging - it wouldn’t be Two Before Ten without an issue around every corner. ‘We used non-toxic glue and biodegradable paper for the labels on the jars, which of course means they don’t stick well at all…’

As Two Before Ten became more and more successful, they were able to ‘do something more positive for the planet, not just whatever we had to to get out of bankruptcy’ as Chris puts it. Since their success has enabled the team to demonstrate a commitment to sustainable business practises, Two Before Ten has made this a top priority.

Phil details ‘you always hear about places using what they call biodegradable, combustible cups. But the problem is these cups are lined with plastic, otherwise they wouldn’t work, so you can’t compost them at home.’ His passion for the cause is evident as he explains the process, leading to acquiring a commercial composter for the cafe. ‘Our money goes into ensuring we can effectively be committed to sustainability, not just telling people we are.’

Enthusiasm for trying new things and exploring new directions has been a consistent theme for the four - the mission has always been to never let the business go stale. Over the years Two Before Ten has evolved from a small espresso bar, to a roastery, to a cafe and bar, to the expansion to multiple new locations. But now everyone’s focus seems to be the Urban Farm Goods. ‘I almost see it as like, we’re only really starting’ comments Blake.

Phil gives his thoughts to wrap up the conversation - ‘if you’re growing and it’s organic growth, then it’s a testament that you’re doing something right.’ It would seem he’s right. All those gruelling years of building, all the ups and downs, have culminated in a beloved meeting place - a hub the local community keeps coming back to.

‘The community has rewarded it… People were coming in once or twice a day for coffee,’ Phil explains, talking about COVID. Chris adds ‘people obviously didn’t need to be eating takeaway schnittys and burgers that much, but they didn’t want to see the business go under. I feel very fortunate that we’ve been able to cultivate such a supportive community.’