Tom O'Toole works his magic in turning a 'white elephant' into a gold mine.

Beechworth Bakery Echuca
June 2002

Australia's most famous baker, Tom O'Toole, the man with the 'midas touch', took on his most challenging venture last September, by purchasing Drovers Bakehouse.

Drover's Bakehouse is situated near the Murray River in Echuca, a popular Victorian Tourist area with a population of 10,000 people. The Bakehouse was established 4 years ago on the site of a run down service station, and built by someone with extremely grandiose ideas for a bakery. The building was made three stories high, with sweeping veranda's surrounding three sides of the second level. The third level was to be used as a bed and breakfast, but it was never completed and remained vacant.

The ground level boasted an outside patio area overlooking a peaceful river view The ground and second levels can comfortably seat up to 400 patrons. A $50,000 wood fired oven was brought over from Spain, along with the Spanish tradesmen who installed it. The oven's floor plate, where they baked, was three metres in diameter and it took a couple of weeks just to heat the monster up before it could be used. The bakery was designed for more wholesale trade than retail. Hot restaurant food was incorporated, and outside function catering for weddings etc was employed. As well as baked items, hot chips and hamburgers were sold in store, and a full liquor license was obtained. Overall, this created a rather complex business. We could not find out how much it cost originally to build and fit out the Drover's Bakehouse but estimates of a 3 million starting figure have been mentioned, and this is not to say how much more money has been poured into it over the past 4 years. The first owner gave up within the first year. Many Managers have been employed over the 4 year period who also could not make a go of it, while the last owner contemplated closing the doors.

And that's when Tom O'Toole came into the picture.

The decision for Tom to buy the building was very sudden, leaving hardly any time for planning. Neither trading figures nor production figures were received creating complications for the new opening. But Tom believed that if he ran the business using the same principles and products that make his Beechworth Bakery so famous, then things should go well. The race was on, the previous owners last day of trade was Saturday the 16th September, and Tom took possession the following day with plans to reopen with a big re-launch on Saturday 23rd September, leaving only 6 days to make an immense change. All showcases and counters were removed, and Confoil equipment was commissioned to build and install new ones. Tom said, "The transition from removing the old counters and installing the new went as smooth as clockwork, and the comments we have received on the appearance of the counters and showcases has been phenomenal."

Confoil's equipment sales manager Rob Catalano said that he had only been able to meet the tight deadlines set by Tom O'Toole because of Toms impeccable planning of the whole project. The custom built Breton display cabinets with solid red gum facias and cabinet tops provide a beautiful setting for the bakery cafe by keeping in with the Port of Echuca's long history and association with red gums. Tom said "showcases are an integral pan of the shop, if you want your food to look good, it has to be displayed in something that looks equally as good". The big wood fired oven took three days to pull down utilising the assistance of a bob cat. This oven was purchased by someone in Melbourne at a better than bargain basement price. New ovens were installed, along with a 20 tray Rotel and a Revent Oven, provers, freezers, blackboards, signage, painting to the interior and exterior of the building. A large area of flooring was replaced, tables and chairs were re powder coated and the list of improvements went on.

Engineers and maintenance crew were brought in from Beechworth, and teams of plumbers, electricians, refrigeration mechanics and builders from Echuca worked long hours. Time was running out, and by Friday 22nd no production had taken place. During all this construction chaos the new staff had to be trained. Marty Matassoni (who is running Beechworth Bakery Echuca) states, "We would have liked 2 months to train the new staff, as its hard to get them to absorb all the information you require them to have in 6 days. We brought some of our staff over from Beechworth for the Opening Day to get things started, and to help assist with the training of 40 new staff from Echuca, which was interesting considering our cash registers had not been operational till the opening morning". No production had taken place until Saturday morning of the opening, this was the first time the ovens had been used, the pie heaters only arrived half an hour before the 6am opening. Marty said the baking section was a disaster to work in with things everywhere as no proper system had been working out, but overall the opening day was a huge success attracting huge crowds of locals and holiday makers. The operating procedures of the Beechworth Bakery have proven to be a success again, and 6 months down the track the Beechworth Bakery Echuca (formally Drover's Bakehouse) is now making a healthy profit, which the 4 year old white elephant had never been able to achieve under its previous 2 owners and many managers. Staff numbers have grown from 25 originally to 45 now. The wholesale trade, restaurant food, hamburgers and chips as well as the outside catering have all been stopped and now operates purely retail, just as its sister bakery in Beechworth. The biggest day so far was Easter Saturday, seeing a $13,000 turnover, with the sister bakery in Beechworth turning over $27,000 that same day. They are confident that eventually Echuca will create a bigger turnover than Beechworth.

In 2003 Tom, along with his new partners, Sharon O'Toole, Marty Matassoni and Jennifer Scheurmann, who have all worked with Tom for many years, will be opening a third large bakery cafe called Beechworth Bakery Healesville, close to the multi tourism award winning Healesville Sanctuary in Victoria.