Ten years on, insiders reveal how homegrown food retail giant Pie Face imploded

For a while, on the outside at least, it seemed like Pie Face was booming.

New stores opened every other week, business media pumped out reports on lucrative deals to open in a growing number of overseas territories, and its CEO delighted in quoting ever larger growth to anyone who’d listen.

Then it all came crashing down.

It’s now 10 years since Pie Face collapsed in spectacular fashion with enormous debts, significant unpaid staff entitlements, messy loan arrangements and the stunning revelation that the company never turned a profit.

As franchisees reeled at the abrupt loss of their life savings and moneymen who’d tipped in millions were left red-faced, Pie Face co-founders Wayne Homschek and Betty Fong departed for overseas.

“It was the worst time of my life,” one franchisee recalled. “I had my kids paying bills for me, paying my loans for me.”

Another exposed what he considered the “flawed” business model of Pie Face, which saw him make a larger margin from a can of Coke than the food supplied by the company.

In the time since, Mr Homschek, a former investment banker, and his one-time fashion designer wife Ms Fong have seamlessly moved on, living a seemingly carefree life in New York City with their children.

Meanwhile, the ordinary Australians left financially devastated after trusting the couple’s assurances of business success are still trying to rebuild their lives – and to comprehend how it all went so horribly wrong.

Foolproof plan to make a crust

Mr Homschek and Ms Fong were dining at a posh eatery in Bondi Beach in early 2003, brainstorming ideas for a new business venture that could make them a fortune.

For several years, they had owned and operated the moderately successful fashion label Paablo Nevada but yearned for more and figured food retail was a prime market.

When they landed on the idea of meat pies, a friend had half-jokingly suggested calling their business Pie Face. Inspired, Ms Fong suggested they bake fun little faces into the crust, with a different expression for each flavour.

And that was that.

They quickly opened their first store in Waverley Mall in Bondi Junction, followed by a prime location in Kings Cross beneath the famed Coca Cola sign, but the intention was never to stop at one or two.

In an eye-opening interview with BRW magazine in 2009, Mr Homschek said he envisage...
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