It’s a match!
David Hicks from Rad Dad Burger and Kate French from The Batch Cafe.
We love collaborations. The power of joining forces to create something even bigger and better is something that Southlanders are awesome at. And a collab between a new business and an established one is a force to be reckoned with.
David Hicks, founder of Rad Dad Burgers and Kate French, co-owner of the Award winning Invercargill cafe The Batch Cafe, joined forces to create an epic one night only pop up burger restaurant at the cafe after meeting last year as participants in COIN South’s food incubation programme, Prove It.
The Batch team had been ‘pottering away’ at a compost system as a way to find an environmentally friendly option for takeaway cups from the iconic local cafe but hadn’t had the time to develop it further.
“We needed to tune it up and expand it, and Prove It was really appealing to me as it gave me some accountability and to dedicate some time to the project and really focus on it.” Kate said.
The surprising part for Kate however has been in the connections that have been made as being part of the programme. “It’s proven to be so much more to me and yes it was about accountability and learning valuable knowledge, but what was really great was that it connected me to a much wider community in the food industry. I found that surprisingly valuable and actually has been a really, really big pivot for us to be able to get out of it”.
One of these connections has been with David Hicks, founder of Rad Dad Burgers.
As a stay at home Dad with a knack for making epic burgers, David joined Prove It after selling his smashingly good burgers at a sold out pop up stall at the local Hop and Vine festival earlier in the year.
Fast forward to the completion of the course and 2022, Kate and David talked about joining forces, and David having a ‘take over’ night at the Batch Cafe. And the result, 100 burgers sold and a sold out Friday night. A smashing success you could call it.
The benefits of the collab was not just the mix of two awesome founders working together, nor that it provided Rad Dad with a venue, and satisfied customers' taste buds, but it provided an established business and their customers with benefits too. “We can help make Southland food more visible and give opportunities for our customer base to experience more variety and greater quality, and help where we can to create a platform to help these guys [small food businesses] grow from and create more exposure” Kate said. So a win for everyone.
“We’ve got the infrastructure..the bricks and mortar…and Dave’s got an amazing product which we are more than happy to showcase. I think those two can work together really nicely.
“The Batch is normally closed in the evenings, as most cafes are in the South, so they didn’t lose anything from their day we just added to it” David added.
The COIN South team are chuffed with the small part they’ve played in this collaboration and believe there are many more matches in the South that could be made. “Established Southland businesses that have done the hard yards have so much to offer new players coming through. The more we can all work together, the better this is going to be for Southland in the long run” Nikki Dermody from COIN South adds.
Connecting over burgers and coffee sounds like a perfect match to us.
Rad Dad: @RadDadBurgers
The Batch Cafe: @thebatchcafe_
‘Baby got Batch’ burger from Take over night.