This pop-up is planting roots – the Josie’s team is opening its own restaurant in Stanthorpe
The brains behind a punchy punk-inspired pop-up have announced the forthcoming opening of their own bricks-and-mortar restaurant in the Southern Downs Region. Josie’s will open on Stanthorpe’s High Street in June, giving residents and tourists a top-notch spot to enjoy inventive fare and some of the best wines from the Granite Belt. Here’s what we know …
Opening a restaurant isn’t easy – it takes a lot of hard work, a chunk of capital and a bit of good luck to make happen. But it’s doable, even if you’re going it alone.
Chef John Speranza and front-of-house star Amy Harker are a couple of hospitality veterans that opted to take the DIY route to realising their long-held dream of opening a restaurant of their own. In a few month’s time they’ll achieve it with the opening of Josie’s in Stanthorpe.
Josie’s began life in 2022 as a pop-up restaurant with a punk-inspired ethos, quickly gaining a following thanks to a punchy offering that blended Italian, Korean and South American inspirations. After a number of one-off dinners around Brisbane at joints like Mongrel and Noir, the duo took Josie’s south, taking over the kitchen at Essen in Stanthorpe for a two-month residency in early 2023. The takeover not only helped John and Amy execute their ideas on a higher level, but also inspired them to make a tree change. They’ve remained in Stanthorpe ever since.
“The residency was like a dream – it didn’t feel like work,” recalls John, who was formerly executive chef at Malt Dining. “[Stanthorpe] is my hometown, so I was reconnecting with people that I hadn’t talked to in years and people were just coming out of the woodwork and offering produce. From the moment the residency ended, we wanted to open a restaurant down here.”
While exchanging the buzz, glitz and profile of the city for the slower speed of regional life might strike some as an unconventional manoeuvre, the couple’s decision to plant their flag in the Southern Downs reflects a growing trend in hospitality. Numerous chefs are taking their talents to idyllic country havens, setting up shop in close proximity to plentiful food bowls. Additionally, destination dining continues to increase in popularity amongst foodies seeking incredible experiences beyond their own back yard.
“We saw the success of other country fine diners around Australia,” says John. “We get over a million tourists a year coming to Stanthorpe and for a town that’s only got 15,000 people, that’s pretty crazy. I just think Stanthorpe deserves more.”
For the past 18 months, John and Amy have been working at local venues, getting to know the locals while hunting for a space to call their own. They finally found a spot on High Street – a character-filled tenancy that offered everything the couple were after.
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“It’s a pretty groovy space that’s got a bit of history behind it,” says John. “It’s had many incarnations in its life – it started its life as a Chrysler Valiant car dealership and then it was a petrol station. But as far as my lifetime is concerned, it’s always been a bottle shop.”
Work will soon commence on the Josie’s fit-out ahead of a mid-year opening. The duo will be leaning into the rustic nature of the venue, crafting a restaurant boasting approximately 36 seats (including 12 at the bar), an open kitchen and an interior aesthetic anchored by vivid pops of Josie’s signature pink. While the duo is eager to maintain the punk spirit of their pop-up, John tells us that the restaurant will be more refined, focusing on executing the core tenets of hospitality at a high level.
“I think when we started Josie’s as a pop-up, the ideology was very punk rock,” says John. “We were hospo punks. It was about nailing the ambience of dining – everything from the food, the drinks, the font on the menus and the music we’d play.
“But at a grassroots level, we’ve always been about wanting to deliver hospitality at its greatest – what it takes to be a good server, what it takes to produce good food and just be an overall good restaurant. We still have that punk rock, DIY mindset, but we’re a little bit older. We’re a bit more mature, so we want the brand to look a bit more mature.”
On the food front, Josie’s will draw from the region’s cornucopia of top-tier produce, working with farmers and suppliers to source the best of-the-moment ingredients from which John will fashion a menu that includes a la carte and set-menu options.
“The menu’s very much going to be based on what’s available, not what I want to cook,” says John. “That’s what the food is focused on – what all these small producers and little farmers have got.
“Josie’s is still very much about wanting to show people how we dine and how we think you should dine,” says John. “There’ll always be a chef set menu, because I love the idea of going into a restaurant and not having to pick anything. But we want to be flexible so there’ll be a short a la carte menu of maybe 10 to 15 items – a few snacks, a couple of larger dishes, some shared mains, maybe a couple of sides and a few sweet treats.”
John will once again be drawing on his Italian heritage for the menu, taking inspiration from his mother’s home cooking to create food that the chef describes as familiar, but also “out there and a bit experimental”. Menu highlights may include a Nashville-style fried-chicken sandwich, but with ‘nduja butter, stracciatella and pickles, savoury crostoli with prosciutto and hot honey, baked rigatoni with vodka sauce, and braised short rib with bread sauce.
As for the drinks, John and Amy are eager to apply some culinary techniques to Josie’s cocktail list, which will include fruit-forward concoctions – like a riff on a pink lemonade with fermented rhubard and a milk-clarified margarita that’s a little bit like a lime cooler – alongside classics and quick-pour freezer-door cocktails. Josie’s will pour an all-Australian selection of vino, with wines from the New England and the Granite Belt a focus.
“It’ll be real tight, like only eight or ten wines deep and constantly revolving,” says John. “I want to showcase the small winemakers giving it a go. Granite Belt is the little wine region that no one’s ever heard of. There are a lot of great producers that are coming out of the woodwork and giving it a go, like Knucklehead Wines, Unnatural Urges and Bent Road – they do some great stuff.”
Josie’s is targeting a June opening date – stay tuned for more info.