Hospitality as Inheritance
When a business passes from one generation to the next, pride, money and love are on the line.
Words: Dani Valent
Photos: Parker Blain
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Not for the first time, Elias Raji has decided to paint the interior of A1 Bakery, the store he opened in Sydney Road, Brunswick in 1992. And not for the first time, his eldest son Haikal is telling him he doesn’t need to.
It’s a chilly Melbourne morning on the cusp of winter and the pair are sitting at a heavy timber table that Elias built many years ago, a bowl of foul moudammas between them. As they spoon faba beans and chickpeas over pita, they have a ritual conversation. “You don’t need to do it, Dad,” says Haikal. “I’ll get someone.” Elias sips his coffee. “Why spend the money? I can do it myself.” The air smells of za’atar and fresh bread; there are a couple of tradies in high-vis eating lamb pizza to the right, two women in head scarves to the left. Everyone – probably even the driver of the tram trundling by – knows Elias will be back with a ladder and a paintbrush. “I have to give him the small wins for the greater good,” Haikal shrugs.
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In theory, A1 is now run by Haikal, 37, and his twin brothers Daniel and Anthony, 30, while Elias tends the olive trees on his farm in Diggers Rest. “But Dad’s still the final boss,” says the first born. “And we always get Dad's blessing before we make big decisions.” The sons particularly respect his ability when looking at new sites: A1 opened a small shop in Fitzroy in 2023 and an outlet in Highpoint Shopping Centre in 2024. “He's got a good eye for positioning and potential,” says Haikal. “He notices things, like where the oven should go. We had a plan for how we were going to set up Fitzroy and Dad said, ‘No, the oven has to go right there, in the middle.’ And he was right. It was for the best, definitely.”
“Even when I was little and I’d work for free, Mum and Dad would say, ‘This is all for you.’ I'll hold onto that.”
Haikal Raji, A1 Bakery
Seven out of 10 businesses in Australia are family-owned but only 19% of them have a documented succession plan, according to a 2025 Family Business Report by international consultancy firm Grant Thornton. “Succession is an issue across all industries,” says Kirsten Taylor-Martin, a Sydney-based specialist in advising family businesses. “One of the major situations we see in hospitality, especially, is that the businesses are small in size. They may make enough profit for the first generation, being Mum and Dad. But if you have two or three children, there’s enormous pressure on the business to make enough money for two or three families.” In the case of A1 Bakery, the sons have overseen an expansion from one site to three, and the family is considering a central kitchen so they can scale up production. But the business is still a shared entity. “We've just grown into the company,” says Haikal. “Even when I was little and I’d work for free, Mum and Dad would say, ‘This is all for you.’ I'll hold onto that.” Elias concurs. “Everything is for them in the end.”
Taylor-Martin sees many hospitality businesses without formal handover plans. “When the incumbent generation is ready to step out, they often just hand the keys over rather than taking the next generation on a process of educating them, making sure they are across the numbers. If the children are able to watch how the parents make decisions and understand the rationale behind those decisions, and they get an opportunity to meet suppliers and customers, that can set them up for success.”
“The danger is that the next generation feels trapped by the past, or that the older generation feels erased by the future. Both must be generous.”
Elena Azark, Restaurant Azark
This isn’t just an Australian phenomenon. Over in San Sebastian, in the Spanish Basque country, the dance between legacy and innovation is infused in the very walls of Restaurant Arzak, where Elena Arzak is the fourth generation to look after guests in the mansion her great-grandparents built in 1897. “Passing a restaurant to the next generation is not simply handing over keys,” she says. “It is handing over a language. The danger is that the next generation feels trapped by the past, or that the older generation feels erased by the future. Both must be generous. The older generation must allow change. The younger generation must understand that tradition is not a burden; it is a foundation.”
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In her case, her great-grandparents ran the place as a tavern and wine shop, then her grandmother served traditional Basque cuisine: stews, banquets, warmth, generosity. “My father, Juan Mari, inherited that world, but he also had the courage to ask: What comes next?” That daring resulted in what became known as New Basque Cuisine in the 1970s. “He helped transform our cooking from something local and beloved into something creative, modern and international, without losing its soul,” says Elena. She’s been integral to the restaurant’s creative direction and spirit since the 1990s. “Now, in my generation, the challenge is different,” she says. “We no longer have to prove that Basque cuisine can be avant-garde. That has been done. Our responsibility is to keep it alive, curious and emotional. We work with memory, but also with science, travel, colour, texture, humour, ingredients from far away and from very close by. The restaurant has become more precise, more global but the heart is the same: San Sebastian, family, flavour, hospitality.”
The A1 Bakery boys have been deeply involved in the family business their whole lives, but Duan and Isabella Wong had no such opportunities for a gentle handover of The Malaya in Sydney when their father died after a short illness in 2018. The Wongs’ grandfather, Wong Tai See, opened the restaurant in Haymarket in 1963. In 2001, his son Lance shifted operations to King Street Wharf. “I have memories of the restaurant going back as far as I can remember,” says Lance’s son Duan, 37. “It was like a family member itself. I couldn't imagine it not being there.” He and sister Isabella, 33, worked in the business here and there as they grew up, but neither was fully engaged when Lance died. “He was only 58. Right up until he died, he was optimistic that he would recover,” says Duan. “There was no discussion of passing on the business, no succession plan at all.” In the midst of the family’s grief, Duan and Isabella quickly assumed responsibility. “Either we took over, or we sold,” Duan says. “We didn’t want to sell so there was no other option. We were thrown in the deep end.”
Key staff members continued to run the floor and kitchen day to day while Duan got his head around the business. He gives some credit to the pandemic for helping school him up. “I would absolutely not choose those circumstances, but the fact that we had to almost rebuild the business from scratch was actually a good learning opportunity,” he says. “It gave me a fast track to scrutinising every line on a P&L and balance sheet.” There were little tweaks like a new napkin supplier, and fundamental shifts such as moving the business back to the city, which they did in 2025. As well as putting them closer to corporate customers, it was a singular opportunity to reframe the business exactly as they wanted to. “At the old restaurant, I was trying to understand someone else's business but with this new one, Bella and I have set up everything exactly the way that works for us,” says Duan. “At the old restaurant, change was hard because things had always been done a certain way. With the clean break, there’s no resistance.”
Well, from staff anyway. When it comes to the menu, many customers like things the way they have always been. “We’ve developed some new dishes that we’re really proud of, but our old regulars just want the holy trinity,” says Duan, referring to The Malaya’s popular Szechuan eggplant, coconut beef rendang and Kapitan, a Penang-style curry. The bedrock dishes aren’t just traditional, they also speak to the origins of the restaurant. “Laksa is another one of our signatures, but we use dairy milk rather than coconut, because when my grandfather started the restaurant in the 60s, you couldn't get coconut milk in Sydney,” says Duan. “They tried coconut milk at some point, but people liked it the way it was, so they didn't bother pushing it anymore. We’ll never change that.”
“Mum thinks sitting in a cubicle is easy, but I was never fulfilled. I was always happier at the restaurant.”
Graham Tran, Kingsland
In Melbourne, it’s been two years since Graham Tran officially took over Kingsland restaurant in Boronia from his parents, Bonnie and Kevin. The family has owned the Chinese eatery since 1991. “My mum never wanted the restaurant life for us,” says Graham. “They always said restaurant life is hard, and it is.” He worked in finance for 13 years. “Office life is not that easy either; Mum thinks sitting in a cubicle is easy, but I was never fulfilled. I was always happier at the restaurant.” His parents are still very much involved and aren’t always keen on the changes Graham has implemented. “They have an old-school way of thinking,” he says. “Dad was still writing cheques to our suppliers which made bookkeeping extremely hard. We didn't have a POS system until five or six years ago; we were still writing down dockets. I put my foot down but it was a massive push. From mum’s perspective, it was me being rebellious. They almost see making things easier as being lazy.”
As the second generation, Graham is consciously making changes so that he can give his kids a different family life from the one he had. “We missed out on family gatherings, birthdays, holidays,” he says. “Now we close Tuesdays and take a couple of weeks off once a year. Our customers are excited for us to have a holiday, we can trust them to come back. Slowly, my parents have come around to that way of thinking.”
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Those conversations aren’t always easy. “We do a lot of work in relation to family governance,” says Kirsten Taylor-Martin. “That just means helping the family to better communicate with one another so they're across everything. It doesn't need to be formal, it might just be regular meetings once a quarter, enabling the incumbent generation to talk about the business and informally mentor the next generation.” Those conversations are especially critical because the regulatory landscape is unclear, following a 2026 Federal Budget that proposes changes around capital gains tax and trusts, which are yet to be solidified by legislation. “Many restaurants are structured as a family trust,” says Taylor-Martin. “There's much uncertainty and the possibility of a lot of restructuring.” Businesses are best placed to navigate potential changes when they know their ultimate goals. “My advice is to start succession planning discussions as soon as possible,” she says. “The actual strategy might be on hold until we have legislation but family members can make sure that the vision is aligned. It’s crucial they start now.”
“I still feel my grandmother in the kitchen. I feel my father’s imagination every day.”
Elena Arzak
Beyond the documents and spreadsheets, the true foundations of a family restaurant are often more amorphous – and arguably more important. “The hardest part is trust,” says Arzak. “A restaurant is full of invisible things: suppliers, regular clients, habits, fears, ways of greeting people, ways of correcting mistakes. These cannot be written in a manual. They have to be absorbed. And then, slowly, transformed.” When the trust is there, the joy can follow. “The greatest pleasure is continuity,” continues Arzak. “To see a dish, a room, a gesture, a family story survive and become new again. In our case, I still feel my grandmother in the kitchen. I feel my father’s imagination every day. But I also feel free. That is the beautiful balance: to inherit something and still be able to dream."
Dani Valent is one of Australia's most respected food communicators. She is the restaurant critic for the Sunday Age, host of food podcast Dirty Linen, and and a frequent media commentator on all things food and hospitality. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
Parker Blain is an Australian photographer who shoots food, lifestyle, interiors and people. With a romantic eye and a natural observer’s approach, Parker’s photography feels intimate, atmospheric and quietly cinematic, focusing on honest moments and connection. He works with Australia's best hospitality groups, venues and his work features regularly in publications like Gourmet Traveller, Qantas Magazine, Melbourne Food and Wine, Yellowtrace and hotel lifestyle brands.
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