First Look: At Its New CBD Store, Hector’s Deli Grows Up

“We have such a quest to make sure we’re not a cookie cutter business. Our whole mission is to try to change the way places can scale. Our concept is to do what the big guys do, but not what the big guys do,” Dom Wilton tells Broadsheet.

Given the cultural influence his sandwich store Hector’s Deli has had on Melbourne’s hospitality scene, it seems surprising the brand hasn’t had a footprint in the CBD until now. But the relatively slow and steady expansion for the deli that kickstarted the city’s sandwich surge comes down to Wilton and co’s penchant to sweat even the small stuff.

“We’ve got a huge amount of people who have incredible experience in fine dining and restaurants and really understand attention to detail and the importance of it. So I feel like we’re becoming a well-oiled brand,” he says.

“We still go about everything the hard way, whether it’s fermenting and pickling things in-house or building the bread recipes. We’ll never order lettuce in a bag, you know? We’ll continue to try and streamline, while having strict rules. And that strict rule is, if the quality ever gets compromised, it’s gone.”

Part of that attention to detail also involves making sure each site he opens feels different from the last, and services a different community. “I’m excited to operate in what is a really different context, in the way that I’m sure speed will be different, and people might be more impatient. We’re gonna have to find out more about ourselves and how we exist in the city, because it won’t look like South Melbourne or Fitzroy or Richmond – it’ll have very clear-cut demographics.”

The new store opened earlier this month in a tiny site on the corner of Little Collins Street and Club Lane, next to Raya. There are only 15 seats and, given the fast-paced nature of CBD eating, it’s geared towards takeaway – albeit with a beautiful fit-out of warm timbers and curvaceous counters inspired by old-school luncheonettes in places like New York and Chicago.

“We know that people are going to spend a lot less time in this space, simply because it’s not very big, but we still want it to feel like an escape from the city and like a moment – a really deliberate moment.”

You’ll find all the Hector’s signatures: tuna melts, salad sandwiches, fried chicken potato buns and more, as well as forthcoming CBD specials like meatball subs and club sandwiches. But the menu is otherwise the same. Where this new site feels decidedly different is in the delivery – from the fancy white worker’s jackets worn by staff, to the jazz music played in-store (“Expect more Chet Baker, rather than the Backstreet Boys,” says Wilton).

“When we first opened in 2017, there weren’t many other places like us around. And now we’re site number four, and we’re seven years later and, without sounding like a dick, there are lots of very similar places. But what feels great is that I can see that we’re moving to a different place … so where we used to have really loud music and this more overt personality on display, we really want to move to a sense of refinement and elevate our brand a little bit, and we feel like the city’s the perfect chance to do that.”

Additional reporting by Audrey Payne.

Hector’s Deli
61 Little Collins Street, Melbourne

Hours:
Daily 7am–3pm

@hectors_deli
hectorsdeli.com.au