The Pie Pivot: Cutting the Chaos to Build a Profitable Business

We shut down the restaurant, ditched the chaos, and built a thriving wholesale and online pie business that actually made money.

CASE STUDY: The Pie Pivot - Turning Our Family Restaurant Into a Profitable Food Brand

The Problem

Full disclosure, this one’s personal.


My mum and I went into business together when I was 22. We built and ran a restaurant that grew into a café, function venue, and wine bar. We were open seven days, from breakfast through to dinner, and we did it all for ten years.

The systems were strong. The team was capable. But we were stretched thin.


We were doing everything... except making a decent profit.

Staffing was a juggle. Overheads were huge. Every day came with a new problem to solve. And even though the business looked busy, it wasn’t working behind the scenes.

What I Did

We stepped back and took a wide-angle view of the business. What was actually working? What were people coming back for? The answer was clear: our gourmet homemade pies.

So we made a big decision. We shut down the restaurant. We closed the café, the function space, and the storefront, and rebuilt the business around one thing: selling our pies wholesale and online.

But this wasn’t just a pivot. It was a full operational rebuild.

Here’s what it took:

  • Created a solid business plan, and strategy to implement it.

  • Created nutritional panels for every pie using FSANZ standards

  • Designed retail-compliant labels with full ingredient info, origin, contact details, and serving sizes

  • Developed wholesale marketing kits including:

    • Branded swing tags

    • Shelf-ready signage

    • Promotional materials for stockists

  • Standardised every part of the process so we could deliver a consistent, professional product, no matter who was handling it

  • Moved into a more suitable space, and leased out our 180 seat restaurant.

  • Marketed to restaurants, cafes and providores that had similar values to us, primarily "locally grown/made" values.

  • Trained and empowered the team to love our business as much as we did.

Solved the Freight Problem

  • Snap-froze pies after cooking to lock in quality

  • Shifted to frozen delivery to prevent product loss in transit

  • Partnered with a frozen freight company in Melbourne for last-mile delivery

  • Built a state-based logistics network to store and ship orders on demand

  • Found the right national freight partner through a mastermind connection, unlocking real scale

Positioned as Premium

  • Shared the story behind each pie, from ingredient sourcing to cooking techniques

  • Showcased traceability: from the butter to the beef, every detail mattered.

  • Partnered with accredited farmers markets to reinforce our positioning as a locally made product using locally sourced ingredients

  • Built customer trust by aligning with markets that prioritised quality, origin, and producer transparency

  • Charged what the product was worth:

    • $9 for individual gourmet pies, while local bakeries were charging $5.

    • $45–$50 for family-sized versions, while supermarkets and bakeries were charging $18.

  • Educated customers on what made our pies different and why they were worth it

The Outcome

Transformed a high-pressure hospitality business into a lean, scalable product company

Built a loyal customer base through online and wholesale channels

Removed the day-to-day grind and created a model that didn’t rely on us being there 24/7

Turned our best product into our entire business, and made it profitable

Started attracting attention - media outlets were knocking down our door to tell our story

Built a brand with real staying power - nearly 10 years later, I still get calls from people wanting to buy or stock our pies

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