{"id":54976,"date":"2025-09-22T08:53:59","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T22:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bidfood.com.au\/?p=54976"},"modified":"2025-09-22T08:54:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T22:54:02","slug":"why-australia-fell-in-love-with-gourmet-burgers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bidfood.com.au\/blog\/why-australia-fell-in-love-with-gourmet-burgers\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Australia fell in love with gourmet burgers"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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As Bidfood celebrates 30 years in Australian foodservice, we sat down with some of our customers who have shared the journey with us to uncover the secrets behind their success, hear about their experiences over the decades and meet the people who have helped shape foodservice in Australia.<\/strong><\/p>

Of all the changes in the way Australians eat over the past 30 years, one trend has stuck around \u2013 and arguably had the biggest impact \u2013 the rise of the gourmet hamburger. Once just a family treat at a fast-food chain or a greasy staple from the local fish and chip shop, the humble burger has been reimagined into a premium dining experience.<\/strong><\/p>

We spoke with Dani Zeini, the force behind Royal Stacks, about why Australians have embraced the gourmet burger and the philosophies that have taken him from flipping a single burger to running 20 stores and 100 staff. <\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Dani Zeini\u2019s love affair and passion for hamburgers came about after a trip to America in 2009 with his wife. \u201cMy first real contact with quality burgers was in the States around 2009 \u2013 2010. We tried them across the country and instantly fell in love, not just with the product, but the service,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>

Dani was struck by how different American burger culture felt. The food was great, but it was the genuine, welcoming service that truly left its mark.<\/p>

\u201cHospitality that was genuinely friendly and warm. It didn\u2019t matter if you were in trackies or a suit, you got treated the same. I appreciated that. Coming from a fine-dining background, sometimes you don\u2019t get that quality service in nice restaurants. But in the States, everywhere we went was welcoming, especially in burger joints.<\/p>

\u201cI felt like I wanted to bring that back to Australia.\u201d<\/p>

Returning with this elixir, Dani began a process of trial and error, crafting burgers at his then restaurant, Dandenong Pavilion. \u201cWe started experimenting with burgers. People loved it. That was the birth of Royal Stacks.\u201d<\/p>

Dani, who describes himself as a jack-of-all-trades, is the founding director and creator of the incredibly popular burger chain, Royal Stacks. \u201cI started Royal Stacks from the ground up. From branding, the first store, design. Everything. And we\u2019ll be at around 20 stores by the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>

As to the secret of his success, Dani believes a great burger comes down to two things – the product itself and the service. \u201cThat\u2019s been the strength of our success \u2013 from Dandenong Pavilion through to Royal Stacks,\u201d he says. \u201cA great burger starts with great service.\u201d<\/p>

Dani leads from the front, setting the tone for his team. \u201cI want staff to treat guests the way I treat them. My leadership style is about absorbing pressure, keeping staff relaxed, creating happy spaces.\u201d<\/p>

It\u2019s a philosophy that extends to how Royal Stacks builds its venues, social media presence and community. \u201cIn any relationship you can tell when someone\u2019s putting in effort. That\u2019s what we do through our service, our food and the spaces we create. People can feel it.\u201d<\/p>

When it comes to what makes a burger taste great, that\u2019s driven by a bit more science. And the first key is the fat\/sugar ratio. From there, it\u2019s all about the quality of the ingredients.<\/p>

\u201cOur beef is pasture-fed, no hormones, no antibiotics, no GMOs. It takes about two years to get that protein onto your plate. You can feel the difference.<\/p>

\u201cThe bread is massive too. Bread is part of every culture\u2019s celebrations \u2013 so we bake ours fresh daily. A small local baker delivers every day. No added sugars, no oils, no long-life preservatives. It\u2019s just classic techniques. You can\u2019t always pinpoint it, but you feel it.\u201d<\/p>

As to the love affair Australians have with the burger and the culture shift that has seen branded burger restaurants and chains become a mainstay of the hospitality landscape, Dani believes this comes down to a bit of nostalgia, changing Australian palates and a little bit of economics.<\/p>

When asked about burgers from his childhood, there was one standout. \u201cFor me, it was always McDonald\u2019s. Playgrounds, Happy Meals, the marketing \u2013 incredible. That was the treat. They paved the way. Everyone\u2019s got those memories. Burgers are nostalgia-heavy. They take us back to childhood.\u201d<\/p>

Another big influence on both Dani and the burger revolution in Australia was the old fish-and-chip shop burgers. \u201cThose cooks were real artists. Some lived above the shop. Whatever they cooked you, it had their heart and soul in it. That was real quality. Royal Stacks is a continuation of that legacy.\u201d<\/p>

And while the burger revolution in Australia was as much a field of dreams, the demand from customers for better quality food was also a driving factor in the supply of new flavours.<\/p>

\u201cSo where once McDonald\u2019s was the standard, now we\u2019ve been opened up to grass-fed farm beef with no trim. We\u2019ve had access to great food, especially in Melbourne \u2013 thanks to people like the European migrants and the caf\u00e9 culture. Palates have changed. When I grew up, steak was from the supermarket \u2013 thin, no fat, burnt. Now my kids know what Wagyu is. My 12-year-old son asks for medium rare. That\u2019s where the culture is. Once you\u2019ve had that, you can\u2019t go back.\u201d<\/p>

When it comes to the economics, Dani believes burgers are still a relatively low-cost product, especially for the quality. \u201cStill, for around 25 bucks you can get a really good burger, fries and a drink. That\u2019s value. Compare it to anything else. Parmas $35 now. Fish and chips $40. Pastas $30. Pizzas $30. A proper restaurant meal is $50\u2013 – $60 minimum. Burgers are still a value proposition.\u201d<\/p>

Above all, though, Dani reckons the secret to the success of burgers in Australia is happiness. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen anyone unhappy eating a burger. Every chemical neuron in your brain lights up. You wash it down with a Coke and you\u2019re in joy.\u201d<\/p>

As to what\u2019s next for Dani and Royal Stacks, it\u2019s all about continuing the legacy of great service and delicious hamburgers, while continuing to stay fresh. \u201cAs you grow, it\u2019s important to think about the life cycle of your core customer. One way to do that is to constantly come up with innovative ideas \u2013 nice, interesting flavours, eye-catching stuff, bold stuff, sometimes just easy stuff. You\u2019ve got to push the envelope and provide new experiences for existing customers while also trying to catch the eye of new ones.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t

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Of all the changes in the way Australians eat over the past 30 years, one trend has stuck around \u2013 and arguably had the biggest impact \u2013 the rise of the gourmet hamburger. Once just a family treat at a fast-food chain or a greasy staple from the local fish and chip shop, the humble burger has been reimagined into a premium dining experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":54977,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,13],"tags":[120,115],"class_list":["post-54976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-reports","category-industry","tag-foodservice","tag-industry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bidfood.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bidfood.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bidfood.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidfood.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidfood.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54976"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidfood.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55017,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidfood.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54976\/revisions\/55017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidfood.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bidfood.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidfood.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidfood.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}