Last week we shot the first part of our new promo video with the fabulous guys from JJ Splice Digital at Surry Hills and Darlinghurst venues: Brix Distillers, Loluk Bistro and Tilly May’s.

Two of our cast members are also fantastic photographers so we were very lucky to get some great behind the scene shots whilst on the shoot. We are shooting the second part this week so should have a finished product to show off very soon. Thanks so much to Amit Karmakar for this blog post on his personal photographic essay website 23-North. We are sure you will agree that everything looks very moody and elegant. We are keen to get you locals out on a dining walk real soon!

Big thanks also to all the participating bars & restaurants and our fine cast & crew for your generous gift of time and energy.

In the meantime enjoy these beautiful shots and the accompanying interview.

Interview with Maree Sheehan - Chief Guide at The Sydney Connection

When and why did you start The Sydney Connection?

I first started conducting dining walks in January 2013, after an internet date with a guy called Oscar from Houston, Texas.

I spent the day showing him the Sydneysiders version of our town and where to go for the best things a city can offer shopping, dining, art & cultural. We bought a new pair of trainers at the QVB, ate a lunchtime bowl of delicious Ramen at the Galleries Victoria, discussed the history of the Archibald fountain and soaked-up the art at the NSW Art Gallery. We finished the day with calamari & beers at Fratelli Paradiso in Potts Point, where Oscar complimented me on my unique tour guide style and suggested I do it as a living.

So, I rushed home and googled “private walking tours Sydney “and lots of shopping and history tours appeared onscreen but no “experience Sydney like a local tour”, which was what I felt like I had introduced Oscar too in our few hours together. This is well before the word ‘local’ was so big on social media and in ad campaigns so I guess I was picking-up on a trend.

My reason for starting the business six months later are varied: I had gotten to a stage in my life where I had done many years of experience in customer service in the hospitality and retail, event management in the fashion, arts and corporate sectors and I wasn’t really enjoying working full-time for an employer.

I was searching for a job where I could use all those skills & experience to build my own small business that was creative, fun and enjoyable, whilst having a balanced lifestyle. Work to live don’t live to work is my favourite motto.

What do you enjoy most about having your own business?

If someone had said “You’re going to be a Tour Guide one day” I would have laughed at them!

I knew nothing about the tourism industry, so the journey of The Sydney Connection has been one of learning-on-the-job, assisted by some amazingly supportive people both in my business and personal life.

The creative part has turned out to be the constant discovery of new venues to visit, seasonal, contemporary food and trending wine & cocktails, the curation of the walk and finding new suppliers to promote my tours. Also creating the online content to promote the business on my website and social media platforms.

The fun – and often challenging part – is cultivating good, mutually rewarding relationships with bars and restaurants owners and operators, meeting and getting to know people from all over the world and showing my guests a dam good night out on Sydney town!

Which is very enjoyable when the evening goes well and people appreciate that they are dining on the best food Sydney has to offer. Feeling part of the local community for a few hours by receiving a warm welcome at the door of a buzzy dining room or funky small bar and realising they are in a room full of Sydneysiders not fellow tourists.

What do you like most about your job?

I love introducing my guests to my adopted city – I’m originally from Auckland and immigrated here 22 years ago – passing on my knowledge so that by the end of the night they understand what makes Sydney the beautiful and intriguing city that she is: the gritty history, the old and new architecture of our urban landscape, our diverse population of multi-cultural people and the key differences between the precincts of the inner city.

I also love introducing them to each other. I know there are people who still stay in touch with each other after going on a dining walk together. There are people I still stay in touch with and during COVID I have been checking in on them online. When you share a meal with someone it can change your life.

Why are you making this video?

This is my second video – produced by the wonderful guys at JJSplice Digital and funded in part by a City of Sydney Quick Response Business Grant – and is aimed at promoting our COVID-19 safety measures, so that our guests can feel safe and enjoy a stress-free evening on a dining walk with us in one of our three precincts of Surry Hills, Darlinghurst and Potts Point.

It is also aimed at attracting our new demographic: locals, interstate visitors and eventually New Zealand and South East Asian tourists (when the bubble is created), because we can’t count on the rest of the world being allowed back into Australia for a while. Pre-COVID sixty percent of my business has come from the US and the rest is a mix of the UK and European countries, so it’s all feeling a bit scary right now.

What do you think locals are looking for on a dining walk of their own city?

I realise that locals will be wanting different information from international tourists about their city such as: more detail, unusual facts they may not know about Sydney and value for money.  So that’s my next challenge: learning how to entertain and inform a tough crowd, that may know a lot of the stuff I usually tell my international tourists. And most of all ensuring they have an enjoyable, unique night out in their own city.

Why do you think people want to dine out again despite COVID still lurking?

I am aware that we are all guilty of staying in our own 1-5 kilometre neighbourhood radius most of the time. Judging by the positive response to dining out over the last few weeks of less-restrictions in New South Wales, people want to get out of their homes and into venues.

I also think people want to show their support for local businesses by spending their money and patronising small bars and restaurants. It’s taken a global health crisis to show people the value of hospitality venues. Their vital place in our community demonstrates how much we all rely on each other to have a good day (or night) by eating and drinking together as we interact with each other over a table or bar.

So, I am hoping that means more people are open to checking out different pockets of their own city, not to mention enjoying having someone else do all the work of booking tables and choosing the food.

Especially after experiencing lock-down – we all need a bit of luxury to distract us from the relentless news cycle.