Kristine Young is the passionate business owner of Bella Venezia Restaurant, Mooloolaba. In the past year, managed by her husband Todd, their team of over 35 staff have delivered amazing food and service to over 60,000 customers. Bella Venezia was recently awarded 2020 Australian Good Food Guide Best Italian, Sunshine Coast. Kristine’s main passion in life is her love of food, wine and marketing! As well as the marketing of the restaurant, Kristine is also an Account Manager at 92.7 Mix FM and 91.9 Sea FM where she enables businesses to grow and succeed through strategic marketing plans. This is where Kristine’s passion meets her purpose. As well as being a wife, mum and nanna! 

Kristine, you’ve worked in marketing and promotion as well as running your own restaurant for some time… tell us about the highlights of each and why you gravitated into these areas?

I’ve always loved marketing; it’s been my passion for most of my life. To help businesses to grow and succeed brings me great joy and gives me fulfillment. Being a business owner of Bella Venezia, (my other passion of food and wine) gives me a distinctive advantage with clients, as I understand how business works and how challenging it can be to stand out with your message and brand. My highlight with Bella Venezia, has been the recent success of our awards. We were voted by our customers as the Australian Good Food Guide 2020 Reader’s Choice Best Italian on the Sunshine Coast. We also received a two-glass rating for the Australian Wine List of the Year Awards which has been possible with the amazing work of my husband Todd, who manages Bella Venezia.

How do you juggle your working life and personal life when you have such a busy schedule?

It’s about prioritising your health and listening to your body. If you feel like you are getting run down or sick, allow yourself time to sleep and rest. Yes, work is important, however you need to balance hard work with rest. In my spare time, I love spending as much time as possible with my Grandson Henry who is so adorable. On weekends, I also enjoy catching up with family and friends, eating and drinking at Bella and going to the beach for a walk which is also important for my work/life balance.

There is a lot happening in the world right now, tell us about some of the adjustments you’ve made to stay at the forefront and to adapt?

These are the most challenging times right now. Adversity and challenges bring out the best in us. We must adapt to change in an ever-changing world.We grow when we are pushed out of our comfort zones. We need to maintain our positive mindset and stay focussed on the end goal of getting through. We would never of thought we would have been forced to close our restaurant temporarily by the Government, as many other business owners have! So we have had to adapt and we been fortunate to keep our delivery and takeaway business open. We have adapted our website with a full online menu including our new vegan menu, and all our alcohol beverages which we are offering free delivery. We now deliver to work or home from 12 noon to 9pm, 7 days a week, to keep our full-time staff employed to adapt with the current changes.

Who are some of the most memorable people you’ve worked with over the years in your TV/Radio career and why?

There’s been too many to mention, however, my current CEO John Williams is an amazing leader of our team. He is funny and genuinely cares about his people which is so refreshing! Simon Rub my GSM is also a very knowledgeable and supportive manager, we also worked at Channel 7 Qld together.

And what’s next on the agenda for Kristine Young?

I love working with the team at 92.7 Mix FM and 91.9 Sea FM. Dining at Bella Venezia will be back up and running as soon as possible. And I’m in the middle of writing my book (in my spare time) which has been my five-year project. It’s such an important message and I can’t wait to share it with everyone!

Favourite food and why?

Pasta, especially our home-made pasta! It’s delicious and is soul food!

What do you do in your spare time?

I love to go for a run, do yoga, or go to the gym, anything physical! I also love to eat and drink wine, to balance each other out of course!

What mantra do you live by?

Be positive always, enrich others with the spirit of optimism and hope through self-belief!

To find out more about Kristine or Bella Venezia head to:

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristine-young-724bb811a/

Facebook

@bvrestaurant