Sebby’s Scrolls: From a Lockdown Hobby to 6,000+ Scrolls a Week
Sebby’s Scrolls’ story starts the way a lot of great food businesses do: with too much time at home and a stubborn determination to get a recipe just right.
Industry: Artisan Bakery
Location: Caulfield South and St Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria
Vanrooy Equipment Used: Escher Spiral Mixer, Venix San Giorgio Wheel in Combi, Salva Iverpan Retarder Prover, Tekno Stamap Benchtop Sheeter, Venix Squero 16-Tray Combi Oven
During Melbourne’s lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, Seb, a fine-dining trained chef, became obsessed with perfecting cinnamon scrolls. He wanted to create something genuinely different, because as he put it at the time:
Friends loved them, neighbours started asking and when one Mentone cafe agreed to trial a tray and sold out in 30 minutes, the path forward became pretty clear.
Within the first year of wholesaling to Melbourne cafes, Sebby’s Scrolls had landed in over 50 venues, with a waitlist of 80 to 90 more. What started as a side project had become a full business, almost overnight.
But growing fast on borrowed bench space and second-hand kit has a ceiling. As the team grew and demand kept climbing, Seb and Belle knew they needed equipment that could actually keep up with what they were building, without compromising the handmade quality that made people queue in the first place.
Finding the Right Fit, Through the Right People
Seb and Belle came to Vanrooy in 2021, through a personal connection: a friend of Vanrooy’s Managing Director, Benji Van Rooy, had worked alongside them in the restaurant industry. That’s often how it goes, bakers and chefs trust word of mouth above almost everything else.
When they first set up their Caulfield South kitchen, they worked with the used equipment that came with the site. As demand grew and they outgrew that setup, they came to us for a used mixer, then kept building from there.
By the time they were ready to scale for their St Kilda launch and push production volumes seriously upward, we did what we love doing: a proper round of recipe and machine testing together at our Dandenong South facility. That process meant Seb and his team could dial in exactly how the new equipment would perform with their specific dough before a single scroll was produced in the new space.
Some of the equipment we set them up with:
- Venix San Giorgio Wheel in Combi: delivering the consistent, even bake that Sebby’s Scrolls need at volume. Individual tins, caramelised outside, soft centre, every time.
- Salva Iverpan Retarder Prover: giving the team overnight proving flexibility so production can run on schedule without cutting corners on fermentation.
The Numbers Speak for Themselves
Sebby’s Scrolls is now one of Melbourne’s most talked-about specialty bakeries, with a following that regularly sees queues out the door at both locations. Rated Melbourne’s best cinnamon rolls by The Urban List, and covered by Broadsheet, Good Food and beyond.
The growth since we started working together has been significant:
6,000 to 7,000 scrolls produced per week, per store
Two retail locations: Sebby’s Scrolls Caulfield on North Road and a second Sebby’s Scrolls St Kilda in the former Black Star Pastry space (another customer of Vanrooy’s)
Grown from a two-person operation to a team of over 20
Wholesale dropped entirely in 2024 to focus on direct retail demand, a sign of just how strong the walk-in trade had become
Monthly rotating specials alongside the core range, keeping product development moving and fans coming back
Online pre-orders launching every Thursday for Friday pick-up, adding a reliable additional revenue stream
The St Kilda opening was a significant moment and the equipment had to be ready for it. The work we did together during the testing phase meant there were no surprises when service started.
Growing Fast? Let’s Talk Equipment!
Whether you’re scaling from a commercial kitchen into retail, opening second location or needing to upgrade out of your current setup, we’d love to have a chat. We work with bakeries and food businesses across Melbourne and Australia to find the right commercial baking equipment for where they’re headed, so don’t hesitate to book our Test Kitchen in Dandenong South, Melbourne to test your recipes before you commit.
Sebby’s Scrolls is open Wednesday to Sunday at Caulfield South and St Kilda. Follow along at @sebbys.scrolls for weekly specials and the queue forecast.
