Brand Tas

In Hobart, between the rivulet trail and the CBD, there is a café called Hamlet.

On a sunny weekday morning every table is full. People are laughing, drinking coffee, eating delicious breakfasts by the fire.

Hamlet is an institution, one with warm wood walls and house-made preserves on the shelves. The only unusual feature is a blackboard that reads, “To date, we have provided 43,431 hours of training to 742 people.”

When Emily Briffa, the founder of Hamlet, was in her early twenties, her brother Jarrod started a social enterprise in Melbourne. Kinfolk, a café, used its profits to support local people and charitable projects around the world.

Emily studied marketing and international studies as she worked in the Kinfolk kitchen, eventually running it. One night she was preparing a dinner with David Moyle, who said he was planning on opening a restaurant called Franklin, in Hobart.

Soon Emily was living in Tasmania.

“I loved working at Franklin,” she says, “creating delicious food and making incredible connections with suppliers. But after starting my career in a social enterprise, I just felt something was missing.”

Emily was staying with family friends who worked in the community services sector. “I suppose through them I was exposed to the nature of disadvantage in Tasmania. I kept hearing about the unemployment rate, yet I was also hearing about the skills shortage in tourism and hospitality. It felt like these were two problems that could potentially solve each other. Here I was working in this fine dining restaurant. I didn’t have a mortgage or a family. I was in my early 20s, and I was pretty naïve.”

Eight years ago, when she launched Hamlet, Emily was taken by the English name for a small community without a church. From the beginning, she and her growing team wanted to address the cycle of people not finding jobs because they didn’t have experience. No one was giving them a chance.

They worked with agencies and organisations devoted to helping people with low skills, newcomers with low levels of English language fluency, and the long-term unemployed.

“After we were open for about four months, we were approached by a woman whose daughter has Down Syndrome. She was keen for her daughter to enter the program, and told us how her daughter had only been given experience working with other people with disabilities.”

Her confidence grew so dramatically in those first few weeks of training [...] and we could see the difference it was making. It was so good for staff morale.

Emily’s cousin had Down Syndrome, so she understood the importance of real independence for the young woman. “I thought, let’s give it a go. Let’s see how Alex does.”

Alex changed everything. She thrived at Hamlet, and today she works at MONA. “Her confidence grew so dramatically in those first few weeks of training. She ended up being one of those participants nobody wanted to let go of. We just wanted Alex to keep coming here. She developed such good friendships with the staff, just coming in and hugging everyone. And we could see the difference it was making. It was so good for staff morale.”

It helped everyone at Hamlet understand why they did what they did every day, and it inspired them to open the training to others living with disability. Over a cup of tea, Emily talks about people who had struggled to read, to interact with customers, even to leave their homes because of social anxiety… now thriving in Tasmanian businesses and organisations.

742 of them and counting.

In early 2024, Hamlet expanded into the space next door to increase their catering business, giving more Tasmanians an opportunity to learn on-the-job skills. They host private dinners and celebrations in the off-hours. They’re always busy. Yet at a time when tourism and hospitality enterprises are struggling to find qualified employees, Hamlet has a waiting list of 16 months of people facing barriers to employment.

“The beauty of social enterprise in Tasmania is you can run a business and also support the community you love,” says Emily.

Ambitious social entrepreneurs often reach out to her for advice and Emily is keen to hear their ideas and to share her own story, how she overcame challenges—especially in the early years. It was hard to find money, hard to find early supporters, hard to build employment pipelines and an enduring model, hard to grow.

“I think back on those early days when we were open seven days a week and I was one of the chefs working in the kitchen. I was doing the books and applying for grants in my spare time. I was beyond exhausted and beyond stressed, not sleeping or eating properly, letting every little thing get to me, and now I wish I had been able to enjoy it more. But I think that’s part of starting anything like this, you push yourself because you really want it to work.”

Emily has always been good to Tasmania, and now she is closer to finding the right balance—though she knows the work of Hamlet is never finished. Social enterprises are continually striving for support from the communities they serve.

“My role has changed and adapted, and I definitely feel that I am less stressed than when I was trying to do everything. But I’m also way better at asking for help. That’s one of the biggest lessons I have learned on this journey.”