From a market stall to Barangaroo: the Bao Bros story
Two brothers, one steamer and a lot of pork belly. How Bao Bros built a lunch queue that stretches past the Wulugul Walk steps.
At 10:40 on a Tuesday, Daniel Lee is folding his three hundredth bao of the morning. His brother Ken is outside on the steps with a tablet, checking the first app orders against the queue that has already started forming.
"We used to guess," Daniel says. "Bring two hundred buns, sell out at 12:15, and send half the queue away. Now we post the week on Sunday and we know roughly how many people are coming."
The market years
Bao Bros started as a folding table at a Sunday market in 2021. The pork belly recipe is their mum's, with one change: a peanut crumb Ken added after a trip to Taipei.
"The truck isn't the hard part. Telling people where the truck is, that's the hard part."
Going live
They now do three regular stops a week and two or three events a month. When they pull into Barangaroo Reserve, the app asks if they want to go live; one tap puts them on the map and opens ordering.
On a good day about a third of their lunch orders come through the app, and almost all of those are ready before the customer walks up. The rest of the queue moves faster because of it.
What to order
Start with the pork belly. If the crispy duck is on, it is a limited batch of fifty and it goes by one o'clock. The mushroom bao is the one vegetarians come back for.