LYNDON KUBIS DIGGIN’ IN THE CELLARS
AS THE OWNER of five wine bars across Melbourne, including Toorak Cellars, The Alps and The Moon, plus an import business, Lyndon Kubis had a lot of wine, a lot of thirsty customers and a lot of staff to keep employed when Australia’s first nationwide lockdown was announced in March 2020. His solution was to launch Diggin’ In The Cellars (or DITC), a same-day wine delivery service.
Instead of labouring over designs and logistics, which the selfprofessed perfectionist would have done pre-Covid, Lyndon cobbled together a basic website with the help of a photographer friend and a couple of graphic designers from Studio of Design and Art (Sodaa). The managers from each of his bars were brought to DITC’s unofficial headquarters at The Alps to pick and dispatch orders, and his casual staff were used as delivery drivers.
From launch, DITC had around 100 orders rolling in a day, and up to 200 on Fridays. It’s an attractive premise – order just two or more bottles for free same-day delivery anywhere in metro Melbourne, including homes, park picnics and more.
Slowly Lyndon was able to refine the operation by updating the website, setting up a proper photography studio, and adding DITC-branded merchandise and wine subscription options. He’s needed to employ more staff to run it now that his wine bars are back open, including operations and marketing managers and delivery drivers. “It’s been a nice little parachute,” he says.
“We thought, worst-case scenario, we’ll just slowly sell through some inventory, but it kicked off straight away.”