CAIRNS IS THE BEST CAPPER FLAIR
WHY THIS AFL LEGEND HAS A TASTE FOR OUR REGION:
SHOULD a glorious, golden strand of hair float into your mouth on its journey to the Esplanade Lagoon filter system this week, the culprit may very well be Warwick Capper.
“Cairns is one of the best places in Australia, besides cold Melbourne and the Gold Coast,” he reckons.
The AFL legend has been swanning about the Far North for a fortnight’s holiday, unabashedly spreading word of his own greatness and his latest burgeoning business venture — one more appetising than a mouthful of flaxen fringe.
Capper says he is a shareholder and future ambassador for a chain of diners due to open stores before the end of the year with plans for a waterfront Cairns restaurant to open in 2018.
“I’m a shareholder, there’s 10 of us all up. Some very smooth operators, just like me. It’s taken three years to get here, so it doesn’t happen overnight,” he said.
The concept is simple — shipping containers converted into gourmet diners offering a new type of cuisine, all celebrating sports and using stars as promoters.
The key menu item, the “wraffle”, combines two favourites of the quickfire feed — a jaffle (toasted sandwich, for the uninitiated) and an Asianstyle wrap instead of bread.
“It’s the healthy stuff. The chicks will love it,” Capper said.
Never one to shy away from self-promotion, the former high-flying Sydney Swans marksman rattled off a few of the delicacies’ monikers.
“We’ll have the Warwick Capper Hall of Fame wraffle, the Warwick Capper Tight Shorts wraffle, the Warwick Capper Mark of the Century wraffle and the Warwick Capper-cino coffees,” he said.
“We might do a Capper Wrapper, yeah I like that.”
Capper said deep-pocketed venture capitalists had backed the plan to open 120 stores within the next four years, but the name of the franchise was being kept under wraps.
“We’ve already got staff on now. We’ve had full-time chefs doing the menu and everything,” he said.
Capper keeps his business portfolio broad. He offers cash-for-comment video messages for “births, deaths, marriages and 21sts” over Twitter and has his own wine label, now in its second vintage.
He also does guest DJ sets at parties and the motivational speaking circuit.
“I’ve got my fingers in many pies. Probably about 10 pies, actually. I love pies,” he said.