As General Manager Food Services and Café Manager and Head Barista at MinRes, Benny and Fitz together drive a unique food philosophy with the company’s people at heart.
"We're here to provide our people with the best hospitality in mining," Fitz said.
"It's about making our people feel special and looked after, regardless of where they work."
That philosophy – fresh, quality food and drinks as a genuine point of difference, not just a site necessity – shapes everything the pair does.
Whether a meal is served at MinRes' Osborne Park head office or remote operational sites, each is carefully prepared using produce sourced from trusted Western Australian suppliers.
Together, Benny and Fitz develop menus, brainstorm new offerings and respond to feedback from a customer base that spans head office professionals and site-based employees across the state.
Benny: From family kitchen to feeding 900
Benny grew up in Australia in what he describes as a hospitality family, having moved from Indonesia as a child.
"My father was in the management side of restaurants and I spent my school holidays with his chefs in the kitchen," he said.
"In high school I loved cooking and then went on to study hospitality management, while working as a cook at night."
He eventually progressed to running his own establishments, while also dedicating time to helping others set up their own cafés and restaurants.
After leading the kitchen at a well-regarded Claremont restaurant, Benny joined MinRes in 2021 and built his namesake restaurant from scratch on the top floor of the company's head office.
The result is a venue that now boasts seven stations spanning modern Asian, grill, sushi and salads.
The kitchen serves up to 900 plated meals in just two hours – a remarkable logistical feat – while pre and post service hours are spent producing take-home dinners for staff and more than 600 daily items for Fitz's Alba Café, six floors below.
On site, the ambition is the same. Teams enjoy à la carte menus, rotating specials, themed events and a daily buffet, with the full menu refreshed every five weeks from a catalogue of more than 1,000 recipes.
"We understand how hard our people work on site, so we make sure they get variety and fresh and nutritious food," Benny said.
"We've introduced cook-to-order dining across our sites to change the perception of mining food and bring touches of our head office offering to site wherever possible."
"From day one, the goal has been simple. We want our people to say they eat better at work than when they go out to a restaurant."
It is a bold benchmark but, with a team of talented chefs committed to continuous improvement across every MinRes location, it’s one Benny believes they are consistently meeting.
Fitz: Designing the experience, then perfecting it
If Benny's story is about cooking, Fitz's is about craft and how two passions can become one.
He grew up in Southeast Asia before moving to Perth, where a chance encounter with an understaffed café one morning introduced him to the world of coffee.
It was an unlikely beginning for someone who was studying interior design at the time, but a passion for hospitality grew.
After graduating, Fitz spent time self-employed before moving into the building industry, all while working café shifts on weekends – coincidentally just blocks from where Benny was working at the time.
When the opportunity arose to combine both disciplines, Fitz joined MinRes to design Alba Café from the ground up at the company’s head office.
The result is a venue purpose-built for throughput and experience – one that now delivers around 900 hot and cold drinks each day.
He has since designed three more venues at MinRes' 14 Walters Drive office, MinRes Air's Perth terminal and Mungala Resort in the Pilbara.
But Fitz's role has grown well beyond design. As the person responsible for quality control across all MinRes sites, he trains utility staff to brew consistently excellent coffee – ensuring that the standard set at head office travels to every corner of the business.
"We've bridged the gap between head office and site," he said.
"The workforce may be different, but the quality and the feeling of being looked after are the same everywhere you go."
A different kind of mining company
In an industry not traditionally associated with culinary ambition, MinRes' approach to food and beverage is a deliberate differentiator – one that signals to employees, prospective talent and the broader market that this is a company that takes care of its people in ways that go beyond the expected.
For Benny and Fitz, it comes back to something straightforward.
"Hospitality has always been the number one priority," Fitz said.
"We offer people the opportunity to break up their day and have a chat with colleagues – that has always been at the core of what we do."
"We have a truly amazing and talented group of people across all our locations," Benny added.
"They're committed to continuous improvement and they strive to deliver the best experience possible each day."
Learn more about the MinRes’ approach to workplace wellbeing.
