Hospitality Businesses That Trust Ace Chef Apparels

Before Ace Chef we were buying aprons from one supplier, jackets from another and pants wherever they were cheapest that month. Nothing matched, sizing was a lottery, and we were writing off garments after a season.

We trialled twelve Bondi aprons across two sections for eight weeks. None of them failed. The second order covered the whole brigade, embroidered, and we've kept a standing reorder since. Replacement spend is down about 40% year on year and — the part I didn't expect — the team looks like a team.

Rolling out a uniform across four hotels usually means six weeks of chaos. We gave Ace Chef the headcounts and let them stage it — property by property, with a buffer of spare sizes held at each site.

What sold it internally was the reorder portal. Our head chefs order against a fixed price list without going through procurement every time, and we still see it all on one monthly statement.

We're a small floor — nine people, open seven days. Uniform has to look good to customers and survive a 4am start.

The cross-back aprons went into service in January and we haven't retired one yet. Our baristas asked for their own in different colours, which is the first time anyone here has asked for more uniform.

Catering means casual staff, which means uniform walks. We needed something durable enough to survive being loaned out and cheap enough that losing one isn't a disaster.

Ace Chef built us a bundle at a fixed wholesale rate with a standing top-up every quarter. Trans-Tasman shipping has never held up an event.

We used to spend the first day of every intake sorting uniform. Ace Chef now packs each student's kit individually against the enrolment list.

Quality matters here too — students keep these when they graduate and go into their first kitchen wearing them.

We pushed hard on heat resistance for the pizza section and got a straight answer instead of a sales pitch. They came back with a heavier weave and we trialled it for a season.

Not everything was perfect — the first pant sample ran long — but it was fixed in the second round.