Kasey Chapman
How old were you when you started at Extraction?
I was 16 when I started at Extraction. I started as a dishie and was as quiet as a mouse.
Do you remember your first day?
I remember being so anxious about starting a proper job, and how confident and knowledgeable everyone was about coffee. But then within the first hour, the older members of the team already made me feel like I fit in, and seeing how hard they all worked made me want to work my butt off as well to keep up with them all.
Tell us about your studies and how you fit this into your busy role at Extraction?
I’m doubling my studies; I’m completing my Bachelor's in Arts, focusing on history, religion, and English, alongside my Certificate III in Library and Information Services. So basically, I’m trying to be Giles from Buffy, haha. I fit this in by having a very structured week. I have specific days I study, and to prevent procrastination, I have made a week-by-week assessment breakdown. I always find ticking off a checklist satisfying, and it’s a great way to keep myself in check.
What is your current role at Extraction?
My current role at Extraction is the Cafe Manager. I’m mainly responsible for the day-to-day running of the cafe, including rosters, collaborating with our barista and kitchen teams, ordering stock, and looking after our customers and Front of House team. I feel like I’ve already learnt so much since taking on this role last year, and that I’ve come to have a better understanding through which Extraction operates.
I’ve been here so long, I feel a lot of joy in getting to give back to a business that's given me so much and helped me grow in ways I could never imagine. I especially love working as part of a leadership team that has so much genuine passion for what they do. I always gush about all the amazing handiwork and creativity that they produce, and I know the job would not be the same without them.
What goals would you like to achieve over the next four years?
Over the next four years, all of my goals revolve around learning or creating. I’m aiming to obviously complete my studies, and alongside that, I want to learn as much about the business side of the cafe operation as possible. I really love numbers, and I find it fascinating that you can look at a set of data and see customer behaviour reflected in it. Also, I want to learn how to make coffee, haha. Finally, I want to get back into my flow with creative writing. I still have a lot of friends in the industry, and I performed at my first literary event late last year. I adored the experience (even though it scared the pants off me), and I want to get back into regular writing. I’ve got a few literary magazines I’ve got my eye on to try and get published in.
How does our mission of Reaching out to Humanity influence your work?
It influences me a lot, because Extraction has a different environment than most hospitality venues. To me, hospitality means love. I’m a huge giver, and making food or drinks for people in my life is a hugely personal act. I express my love to friends and family through hosting and giving, and every day I come into work, it feels like an opportunity to do that on a professional level. Extraction has such an emphasis on building human connection in a way that nowhere else does, and it makes every opportunity an opportunity to give and make someone smile with good food or good coffee. It creates a wonderful warmth to everything we do.
What do you enjoy most about working in hospitality?
It’s a small thing, but I get so much satisfaction out of working together with a customer to find something that they’ll enjoy. Especially when a regular decides that they want to try something different. I always get so excited, especially when they love it. Seeing people happy and enjoying their food or coffee makes me happy.
What’s a surprising fact about you that people might not expect?
If you can’t tell from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference, I am absolutely huge nerd. Especially for the horror and gothic genres. I love reading and board games, especially TTRPGS like Dungeons and Dragons and Call of Cthulhu. My Demonia collection is the most prized thing in my house. The only tattoo I have is a mixed reference to Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King, which is how I got into horror.
What advice would you give to someone starting out in hospitality?
That it’s okay to make mistakes. When I first started, I was deathly afraid to make a mistake. I was already an anxious teenager, and the thought of one of these older hospitality folk being mad at me was world-ending. But we all make mistakes or missteps because we’re all human at the end of the day. But the most important thing is to take a breath, focus on how we move forward from those mistakes, and learn for next time. The world won’t end because you made a mistake.
What’s been the most valuable lesson you've learned since working at Extraction?
The most valuable lesson I’ve learned is to trust your gut, experience and confidence. However, despite all that you’ve learnt, there is always room for growth and an opportunity to learn.
