The smell of fresh focaccia still lingers in the light-filled bakery-café in Minchinbury well into the afternoon. The lunch rush has passed but the espresso machine hasn’t stopped. Above the counter, a menu draws from the many cultures that make Western Sydney home: Middle Eastern, Filipino, and Samoan among them. Ben Salgado didn’t plan to open a café. He was working as a personal trainer when a conversation with a client who owned restaurants led him to co-found Soulte.
Ben’s road to opening Soulte was not straightforward. He grew up in the Mount Druitt-Plumpton area, attending Good Shepherd Catholic Primary School, where Mass on Sunday was not optional and he resented being made to go. In his teens he attended St Clare’s Catholic High School, Hassall Grove, and then St Dominic’s College, Penrith, though he didn’t last long at either. He found trouble more easily than direction and spent a significant portion of his 20s in prison. It was there, alone in a cell with nothing but a Bible, that his faith shifted from something imposed to something he freely chose. When his father died during his last sentence, the prison allowed him to attend the funeral and deliver the eulogy – the moment, he says, that changed everything.
Ben Salgado. Image: Diocese of Parramatt
After his release, he returned to the community that had shaped him, including Good Shepherd Parish, Plumpton, where he now worships every Sunday. This time, by choice.
“My late father was the one who inspired me to do something big,” Ben says. “His example, and my faith in Jesus, keep me grounded in why I serve people the way I do.”
The name Soulte, he explains, is drawn from his late father’s surname ‘Salgado’, which is Portuguese for ‘salty’.
‘Deeper than hospitality’
Chantelle Ocsan came to hospitality by a different road. Good Shepherd Catholic Primary School, Plumpton was her starting point too — more than a decade after Ben. She went on to Catherine McAuley College, Westmead, and now regularly worships at St Andrew the Apostle Parish, Marayong. When Young Lions, the café in Blacktown where she had spent years working, announced it was closing, her concern was less to do with finding another job, and more to do with losing something that could not easily be replaced.
“It was the biggest gut punch to the whole team,” she says. “We thought there wasn’t another space that could give us what it did – a genuine community. I wanted something like that to still exist.”
She set up Little Angel in Rydalmere, naming it after her late grandfather Angelito. There, her approach starts with one instruction she gives every staff member: do not open with “What can I get for you?” Open with “How are you?”
Chantelle Ocsan. Image: Raphael Canillas
For Chantelle, the reasoning behind it goes deeper than hospitality alone.
“Everyone that comes through is a human being. That one interaction might be the only way they encounter something of Christ, whether they’re a believer or not. Even knowing I might not see someone again, I want that interaction to be impressionable.”
“I tell the team: remember names, not just orders,” she says.
The feeling of welcome
Customers have started asking staff for their names in return. It’s a small shift, but for Chantelle it signals something larger – that the welcome is being felt.
At Soulte, the menu is its own expression of welcome. Ben lights up talking about an upcoming addition, a Samoan lamb bun called keke mamoe. His enthusiasm reflects what Soulte is really about – a genuine recognition of the people it is there to serve.
“People see the quality, but they also feel the connection,” he says. “When they know me, I hope that makes them feel at home here. That’s what I’m trying to build – something for the community.”
Some customers have told Chantelle that Little Angel has become a safe space. Some have even cried there.
“That’s what I want this place to be: a space where people can feel safe from the outside world and just reset.”
Neither Little Angel nor Soulté announces itself as a Catholic business. But both owners say their faith shapes the way they operate – and both were always going to do it here, in the community that shaped them.
Image: Supplied
“I try to honour God in the way I lead and serve,” Ben says, “even while I’m still learning what that looks like.”
Chantelle says: “This is the one thing that has felt pretty certain in a while. As much as there’s a lot thrown at you as a business owner, this is my vocation, and I didn’t know it existed for me until now.”
Hospitality is a Catholic instinct – the belief that every person who walks through the door carries a dignity worth honouring. For Ben and Chantelle, it starts at the counter – in the food they serve, the names they remember, and the simple act of asking someone how they are.
Soulte has locations in Minchinbury and recently opened a second in Gregory Hills. Little Angel Café is located in Rydalmere. For opening hours and details, visit soulte.com.au or find Little Angel Café on Instagram at @littleangel.cafe.
This article was originally published in the 2026 June | Winter edition of the Catholic Outlook Magazine. You can read it online here or pick up a copy in your local parish.
