NO EASY STREET FOR NEW DINER OWNERS
A VEGETARIAN radio host and a journalist have purchased one of the Gold Coast’s best burger restaurants.
David ‘Christo’ Christopher from Hot Tomato and wife Emma Megginson are the proud new owners of the Mermaid Beach burger-joint Easy Street Diner.
Mrs Megginson, a writer, said the sale came about in “the strangest way”.
“It wasn’t like we were shopping (for a restaurant) at all,” she told the Bulletin.
“It was my brother’s birthday and I thought ‘let’s get him a voucher’.
“The owner noticed I was a writer on my email’s autosignature. He said ‘(my daughter) is pretty unhappy here, we might move back to Adelaide. Do you know anyone who would be interested in buying the diner’?”
The couple spent two weeks toying with the idea.
“We went through all the numbers and realised it’s actually a really good business and has such a loyal following,” Mrs Megginson said.
Christo added: “It’s one of those places if we were ever to do something like this, this is how we would do it”.
Mrs Megginson: “We thought ‘Alright, that will give us the chance to spend a couple of months getting to know the business and how it works.
“The restrictions started to ease a little to 10 people and then it raised to 20 and we quickly realised we need to work in it a lot.
“We thought we’d just pop in one or two nights a week but we’ve had to go in every night.
“We both work fulltime and have three kids. It’s a bit mental.”
Christo, who is on the airwaves from 5am to 9am Monday to Friday, said he was working in the restaurant up to 9pm and is feeling “like the walking dead”.