Name: Brian Church

Age: 55

Nationality: Canadian

Living in: Queensland, Australia

The average lifespan of a restaurant in the resort town of Maroochydore, on Queensland’s “Sunshine Coast,” is around two years. Lefty’s, Brian Church’s restaurant, has been in business for 13 years.

“We didn’t have a cent the day we opened,” Brian says. “The butcher and fishmonger staked us the produce and we reimbursed them at the end of the first week.”

Brian was no stranger to taking risks. Within days of arriving in Australia, he almost drowned trying to rescue a fisherman. “It was a close call. I only just got back to the beach myself,” he says.

Today Lefty, as Brian is universally known, is one of the longest-surviving restaurateurs in the area. He opened his first restaurant, a Tex-Mex, in 1981, a second Tex-Mex in 1987, and his third, Lefty’s, in 1997. Each was profitable almost from day one. Now after nearly 30 years in the trade, he’s semi-retired, although his wife Kathy still runs the kitchen.

Brian is originally from Calgary, Canada. When Brian and Kathy came to “The Coast,” Maroochydore—which is one-and-a-half hours north of the state capital of Brisbane—was just a minor surfing and fishing resort.

Kathy liked cooking and Brian had waited on tables to pay his way through college. He found a job as a trainee chef at Rusty’s, one of the few restaurants in town. “I learned a lot from the proprietor about how to build a business in a small town,” he recalls. “He knew everybody and never forgot names.”

Impatient to break out on their own, Brian and Kathy opened their first restaurant in a shut-down motel. The premises was hardly perfect, but the location was promising. BC’s Tex Mex, as their first venture was called, was right alongside the town’s only McDonalds. “If you can, grab a site right next door to a chain like McDonald’s,” says Brian. “They’ve done all the marketing and they bring in the customers.”

Brian launched this first venture with $4,120. The restaurateur describes himself as “the Ned Flanders of Maroochydore” after the glad-handing character in The Simpsons. His “mates,” as they call friends in Australia, helped him knock out walls, hook up the power and water and install the equipment. Their payment? Free meals.

“I’ve always done that,” explains Church. “Nobody takes advantage of it. And they help spread the reputation of the restaurant by word of mouth. That’s the most important advertising you can do in this town.”

To keep costs even lower, the couple lived above the restaurant. Open six days a week, the 80-seater establishment soon proved to be a catalyst for other ethnic restaurants that sprang up around it as the locals got more adventurous in their dining habits.

Five years later the business was on such a firm footing that, when the landlord decided to demolish the old motel, the couple simply took their clientele a little farther up the road with hardly a hitch. Once again, the location wasn’t exactly perfect—an old wooden house at the back of a failing car dealership.

Yet with a $41,200 loan from a local finance company and even more help from friends, the couple renovated on an even larger scale. Brian’s next Tex-Mex had 170 seats, a garden bar and a bigger menu. By now, Kathy had adjusted to local tastes. “She’d learned that the secret was in the sauces. That’s where we added the value,” explains Brian. The venture returned a profit immediately and the couple paid back their loan early.

Their third restaurant grew out of their growing reputation for getting things done. A local developer offered to convert the ground floor of a two-story wooden house into a restaurant and put the couple into it, living over the top as they’d always done… but now with two young children. The location was good—in a fast-developing tourist area. The finance couldn’t be bettered—the developer funded the conversion. And when it was done, Brian borrowed from the bank against the improved premises and immediately paid the developer back.

What advice would Brian give perspective entrepreneurs interested in the restaurant business? First, be nice. He makes sure to help out in his competitors’ establishments.

Second, adapt. What works overseas often won’t work locally. “That’s especially true here. Australian cuisine is going more and more Asian,” he says.

Third, never buy a restaurant. “Goodwill? I’m the goodwill. If you purchase a business, you’ve got to do 20% to 30% better than the previous owners to get your money back.”

Finally… love your work: “I’m here to serve. It sounds noble, but it’s thankless. Your reward has to come from inside.”