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By Stephen Johnson, Economics Reporter For Daily Mail Australia
03:10 06 Nov 2023, updated 05:23 06 Nov 2023
A chef who boasted about training former MasterChef judge George Calombaris now has a fried chicken restaurant in liquidation.
Eric Tay’s Hillbilly’s Crispy Chicken business was placed into liquidation, just four years after he opened the restaurant in Baulkham Hills in Sydney’s north-west.
‘Hillbilly’s will be closed until further notice,’ it told its followers on Instagram and Facebook on November 2.
The business had an Instagram page with 2,000 followers, which featured videos of young women reviewing a tower chicken burger.
Hillbilly’s menu included burgers with three beef patties and southern fried chicken burgers with maple bacon and blue cheese.
Mr Tay, who ran and operated the business with his wife, went under after All Business Accounting Solutions obtained a court order to have Hillbilly’s Crispy Chicken immediately placed into liquidation.
Troy Graham, from Taylor Insolvency, said a months-long dispute over a bill of about $5,000 for financial advice had led to a legal process that was now set to cost close to $8,000.
‘It seems as though the company’s gone into liquidation over a very minor debt,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘The cost of winding the company up appears to be more than the principal debt that was owed to the creditor.
‘I can only see the reason for this company going into liquidation, as the result of a dispute with a creditor who has unpaid bills.
‘The director didn’t have the financial means to be able to fund a a defence in court, it is really sad.’
Mr Graham said the company, formally known as Hillbilly’s Fried Chicken Pty Ltd, did not owe any rent or staff wages.
Mr Tay’s LinkedIn profile boasted that he trained Calombaris during the late 1990s, when he was an apprentice at the Sofitel in Melbourne, where the future MasterChef judge met fellow future TV chef Gary Mehigan.
‘I’m an entrepreneur I started out in the hospitality industry as a qualified chef, working in Scotland, New Zealand, Channel Islands UK, Melbourne and Sydney Australia,’ Mr Tay said.
‘I was a senior chef above George Calombaris at the Sofitel in Melbourne.’
Hillbilly’s Crispy Chicken opened in November 2019, four months after Calombaris’s MAdE Establishment back paid $7.8million in wages and superannuation entitlements after admitting to underpaying 515 existing and former staff.
This covered employees at the Press Club, Gazi and three Hellenic Republic restaurants.
The scandal saw Network Ten dump Calombaris from the upcoming 2020 season, along with fellow judges Mehigan and Matt Preston, at the time admitting the chefs were unsatisfied with the pay offer.
Calombaris is still in the restaurant business having in April this year opened a new Greek-Australian restaurant The Hellenic House Project at Highett, in the Melbourne’s south-east.
Business partner Philipe Hatzikourtis is putting up the financing while local builder Ivo Baldari did the design.
The trio were this year also considering a strip of land at Rye in the Mornington Peninsula.
Mr Tay had previously owned a cafe at Oberon the New South Wales central west, called Tay’s Epicurean before operating three food trucks serving customers at Bella Visa and Oran Park in Sydney’s north-west and outer south-west.
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