AMD Chartered Accountants, Bunbury, Geraldton, Mandurah, Accountants House, Western Australia

Client Focus

Nicola's adds Italian flavour to Bunbury

Restaurateurs Jennifer and Ian Spear of Nicola's Risorante

Nicola’s Ristorante may produce hearty home-style Italian food but Restaurateurs Ian and Jennifer Spear know that running a restaurant is hardly a domestic affair.

The popular Victoria Street restaurant produced more than 580,000 main courses in the past financial year.

Ian and Jennifer purchased Nicola’s in August five years ago; Ian is Head Chef and Jennifer manages the front of house which can seat about 100 patrons and they often serve 180 meals in a night.

As the business has grown they have built up the number of staff from five to 18 and trained three apprentices.

Using fresh local produce, Ian creates meals that feature the best Italian flavours “that make you want to come back and have it again”.

The latest menu sees the introduction of Manjimup truffles which are sprinkled on top of pasta or gnocchi served in a white wine and cream sauce.

Crab linguine in a vodka cream sauce also has patrons coming back for more.

The wine list at Nicola’s has a selection of more than 100 bottles, including 75% local wines along with Spanish sparkling and Italian red and white wines.

“I’ve always loved Italian cooking and I don’t like to see people go hungry,” Ian said.

“I favour local and regional produce and we use a lot of herbs from a local grower,” Ian said.

“A lot” means about six kilograms of garlic and three kilograms of basil are consumed in the restaurant by happy diners every week.

Open for six nights and five lunches each week - closed for Saturday lunch and on Sundays - the restaurant pays out about $70,000 a year in invoices just for meat.

This is where AMD Chartered Accountants Senior Manager Shane Kaurin has become a great help to Ian and Jennifer.

Shane makes sure that the restaurant’s end-of-year figures are all up-to-date and assists with the restaurant’s payroll, invoices and cash flow management.

Shane guides the Spears in managing all the financial aspects of the business.

He also assists them with industry standards so they can compare their figures with similar dining establishments from around the nation.