Catering business Barbecue Bill has been something of an institution in Dunedin for just over 30 years. Business reporter Sally Rae talks to owners Tony and Heather Cummings about the secret to its success.
Heather Cummings has a theory.
As co-owner, with husband Tony, of Dunedin-based catering business Barbecue Bill, serving up spit roasts and barbecue meals to the public for more than 30 years, the pair have become well known.
"One of these days, we're going to go to Mars or the moon and a Martian is going to know who we are. I'm sure of it,'' she said.
For whether it has been on a train in Sydney, walking through Heathrow Airport, or stepping out of a hut in Rarotonga to be greeted with the words.
"Hello Mrs Barbecue Bill'', there's no escaping recognition.
Often, as Mr Cummings walks down the main street of Dunedin, couples approach him, introducing their children to the man who catered at their wedding.
But being a bit famous - he reckons he is a little like the Dunedin equivalent of Auckland's Sir Peter Leitch, aka the Mad Butcher, also came with a sense of responsibility for the larger-than-life personality.
"You've got to look after people,'' he said.
Dunedin-born and bred, Mr Cummings (67) began his career in hospitality after leaving school, with a job cooking at the Brydone Hotel in Oamaru in 1964 as he could not get a job in Dunedin.
Then it was back to his home city and jobs in various hotels, before a stint in the Cook Islands and then a return to Dunedin to study commerce at university.
A year of tertiary study was enough for him. He recognised hotels were a business he wanted "a bit of grounding'' in and before returning to the hospitality industry, he achieved that.
Then he jokes he had an early midlife crisis, while still in his 20s, as he digressed to driving trucks and bulldozers, while also keeping his hand in with some hotel work.
It was after buying a taxi that he met Heather, his second wife, and the couple discovered they got on well together.
A return to hospitality came with a phone call asking for some help at the Captain Cook Tavern - and that was how the foray into barbecues began.
Installing a barbecue in the garden bar started Mr Cummings thinking it could be a commercial venture.
So he got an old Commer van, rang the Health Department and explained what he wanted to do and Barbecue Bill was launched.
That was back in 1985 and, since then, the business has been "growing and growing'', through word of mouth and building a reputation, he said.
The couple also owned a takeaway business in St Andrew St between 1987 and 2000 but decided it was better to concentrate on catering.
They moved to their Taieri Rd premises in 2000 - "She's a tiny little place that we operate out of but it works, it's very much like a ship's galley'' - and they now run 13 vans.
The line-up of Barbecue Bill vans parked near their headquarters was a familiar sight.
Many were bought second-hand.
One, known as "Number Seven'', was a former taxi and its speedometer read an impressive 1,670,000km.
When it came to business success, Mr Cummings had a fairly simple philosophy along with a mantra, that he applied to life, of "you can do anything if you put your mind to it''.
"Be fair, treat people the way you'd like to be treated, put yourself in the client's position and you won't go far wrong. Be honest, don't promise stuff you can't deliver.''
Although that was not rocket science, many people did not understand it, he said.
Trying to provide the best in the way of service to clients was something he believed was lacking in the industry.
"It annoys me going to a hotel or restaurant where all the staff want to do is talk to each other and not the client. That is shocking,'' he said.
Barbecue Bill catered predominantly for weddings and corporate events, along with birthdays and other occasions.
Mr Cummings described the business as "a little bit like the McDonalds of catering''.
"We're not all the complicated stuff. What we do ... to a certain extent, it's food people recognise. It's almost comfort food,'' he said.
Over a year, the business could provide the food for between about 120 to 140 weddings; sometimes, they catered for four or five weddings in a day.
"Somebody once said at a function, do I run it like a military operation? That's what you've got to do. Sometimes we look like a Punch and Judy show.''
"You get extremely tired but the buzz with it is you have happy people.''
Barbecue Bill catered for one couple's 50th and 60th wedding anniversaries and, when the cheque came for the latest milestone, it was accompanied by a note saying "See you in 10 years''.
"That's pretty cool,'' he said.
A typical week for Mrs Cummings, a dairy farmer's daughter from Central Otago, could see her anywhere from Christchurch to Bluff or over to Haast.
On Thursday, Mrs Cummings was heading to Invercargill to feed 50 members of a Rotary club.
Leaving Invercargill before 6am yesterday, she was back in time to pick up another vehicle to cater for a lunch for 55, and then it was back to Invercargill for a wedding.
The couple have been together 35 years. Working together, as well as living together, took a special sort of relationship, Mr Cummings said.
"Most couples would destroy themselves in that time,'' he laughed.
So much of their work was outside Dunedin, he joked they were "a bit of a Dunedin export''.
"And that's good, bringing money back to Dunedin.''
While Mr Cummings was still very hands-on, he quipped that now he had the "Gold Card'' he tended to take a step back during the quieter winter months and let others run it.
Staff numbered 11, which included casual staff, and a busy day was catering for five or six functions in a day.
All but one of his six children has worked in the business "at one time or another'' and daughter Jasmine (Jazz) still does.
They have catered for many VIPs, including politicians, and Mr Cummings said "the people at the very top are down-to-earth and awesome''.
Unusual places they have catered at included the roof of John Wickliffe House and Ripapa Island, in the middle of Lyttelton Harbour, where the clients dressed in prison suits.
One of Mrs Cummings' worst excursions was to cater for a function that required her to drive alone the Skippers Canyon Rd, near Queenstown.
The road was recently listed as one of the most dangerous in the world by a website that searched for the world's most dangerous routes.
In Mrs Cummings' succinct words - "it's a bitch''.
"By the time I got to the job, my hands were white. It took five minutes to unclench [them] off the steering wheel, I was that terrified,'' she said.
The pair remained passionate about Dunedin, which Mr Cummings described as a "great wee town''.
Their loyalty to the city - and its products - was evident in the tattoo Mrs Cummings sports on an upper arm - a Speight's beer logo.
That Mr Cummings is alive, let alone running a successful business, is something of a miracle.
About 25 years ago, he was on a boat with three mates, sailing to Auckland, when they encountered a big storm off the Wairarapa coast and were shipwrecked.
Mr Cummings, a last-minute addition to the trip, floated ashore but the others perished.
After about an hour and a-half, he washed up on a beach.
He crawled to an unoccupied house and broke in, warmed up for a while, before going to another house to raise the alarm.
It failed to deter him from a love of sailing - "you either become a victim or you get over it'' - and he built a 42-foot boat in his backyard called Wife.
The biggest trip they have been on was an Auckland to Suva yacht race in 2005 - "got last, didn't care, we're not a racing boat'' - and then on to Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Norfolk Island before returning home.
It was, as Mr Cummings says, a good jaunt.
A tattoo of Wife features on Mrs Cummings' other arm.
He is a long-serving Spirit of Adventure Trust volunteer and crews on the Spirit of New Zealand during the winter months.
When crewing on the Spirit of New Zealand, he often talked to the young people on board about work.
"I say . . . when I'm doing a function, I'm doing everything possible to make it work for them [the clients]. It's all in my headspace. I could stand there and say, poor me, all my mates are out clubbing or dancing and I have to work. Or I can do the very best possible and walk away going [we] nailed that one. So it's not work that sucks, it's how you look at it.''
The couple have recently finished building their own house but one thing was missing on their new deck - a barbecue.
And as for the moniker Barbecue Bill?
People were regularly surprised that Mr Cummings' name was actually Tony and not Bill.
"Over the last 30 years, we've never had a Bill, William or Wilhelmina work for the place so that is the funny thing.''
