PASSION FOR PIE: Photo shows Sim (right) posing with his wife, Bong at his outlet at Wisma Phoenix. Currently, there are about 28 pastry products being sold at John’s Pie, the recipes for which are all the results of Sim’s research and development efforts.
KUCHING: The recent surge in the popularity of John’s Pie, a food and beverage establishment specialising in pastries, is not an overnight success, but one following a three-year struggle which has proven fruitful in due course.
“Having always loved pies, I started out selling Australian pies which I outsourced. Having encountered many problems ranging from the quality of the pies and the inconsistent supplies, I decided to try out my own instead,” said John Sim SJ, proprietor and manager at John’s Pie, aptly named after himself.
Sim revealed that he spent two years on research to come up with his own recipes for his pies. After many incidents of trial-and-error, he has successfully come up with the approximately 28 types of different products available at John’s Pie today, ranging from pies and quiches to tarts of sorts.
The business started out as a small kiosk outside Selection Supermarket at Tabuan Jaya, operating under the name JJ Chicken Bites. Sim was targeting the surrounding residents with mid- to low-income, aiming to see the local reception of pies.
“For them, freshly baked pies are something new. Pies were only available at supermarkets and bakeries and they are rather expensive or not so fresh. So I was trying to get the feedback from locals at the first branch.
“I received a lot of critic from customers and thought that perhaps the market was not ready for these products yet,” Sim confided, adding that during the years of research and development, there was hardly any profit to be made, if any at all.
He persisted with the business for a while, but was on the verge of giving up when his wife, Joleen Bong, encouraged him to go for a last try at the Rainforest World Music Festival back in July this year.
Having obtained a booth at the last minute, Sim figured that this was an opportunity for him to get feedback from the many foreigners attending the event on how his pies match up to those that they were used to back home.
“It was long hours of work across the four days and the first day was a disappointment. But things picked up really fast on the second and third days. I was surprised to see people actually queuing up in front of my booth,” Sim said, noting that there were a lot of tourists and expatriates who had showered him with compliments.
From there, Sim got the will power to move on with his business and went on to operate a booth at another local event – this time, the Kuching Festival, explaining that, having tested out the foreigners’ market, he wished to see the response from the locals instead.
He recalled that his booth was at a secluded corner and thus, the business was moving slow for the first two to three days. After that, he heard a lot of hearsay about his products being reviewed online on various Facebook pages.
“Imagine my surprise to hear that there was a lot of buzz about my pies. After that, my pies sold very well, with the bestseller being the Signature Steak pie and it didn’t matter if my booth was located far out,” Sim said.
Sim noted that he had also supplied his pies to three to four cafes, two fine food restaurants and one resort. Following much consideration, he opened up his outlet at Wisma Phoenix in downtown Kuching, targeting the working adults as well as the students at the nearby tertiary education institution.
With a fast-expanding business, a second outlet is also coming up along Jalan Song, targeted at the nearby residential areas.
Believing in continuous improvement, Sim added a range of refreshments and beverages to his menu, including a selection of coffees and teas. He also highlighted an upcoming product that customers can look forward to, a yet to be named Christmas-themed pie which weighs approximately half a kilogramme with lamb and Malta fillings.
Sim noted that he had many products lined-up, but believed that they should be launched slowly as the pastry market here was still in its fledging stage.