Food franchisees Paul and Rosa O’Neill and Hayden and Sheryl Ramsey have added GuzmanYGomez to their growing stable of businesses at Stockland Shellharbour.
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The two couples started their journey into the hospitality industry six years ago when they bought into the Cold Rock dessert franchise and opened an outlet in Wollongong.
They have since sold that but still run Cold Rock at Penrith and on the plaza level at the western entrance of the popular Shellharbour shopping centre where they also operate The Coffee Club outlet.
On the first day of trading in the same restaurant precinct Cold Rock Shellharbour sold more than 2000 ice creams despite not opening until after 11am.
And they had similar success late last week when they made 3700 burritos on the first day, making one every six seconds.
Mr O’Neill said franchise trainers had been working with the 30 initial employees at GuzmanY Gomez for two weeks
‘‘We are just trying to bring traditional Mexican food in a fast casual dining format to the Illawarra,’’ he said.
Mr Ramsay said GuzmanY Gomez was an Australian-owned franchise that had 30 outlets in Australia, but now also had one in Singapore and was expanding.
The four business partners previously worked in insurance, office administration and electrical engineering before making their sea change into hospitality and they have further plans to keep expanding their business interests.
They discovered GuzmanY Gomez when they were thinking about opening another The Coffee Club outlet in Wollongong.
‘‘Originally when we first opened The Coffee Club here there was a sign on the awnings saying GYG were coming,’’ Mr Ramsay said.
‘‘I had experienced the brand before and I was pretty excited by that because it meant more value to this precinct. But then a few weeks after we opened The Coffee Club the sign went down. So while I was away overseas Paul made some inquiries into this new brand. We did our own due diligence and researched the brand and were very impressed by it.’’
All GuzmanY Gomez food is cooked fresh to serve each order and the restaurant is open from 11am to 10pm seven days a week.
It is also licensed and is famous for its frozen alcoholic beverages such as the frozen Margarita.