A few years ago two best friends started a humble burger joint in Maroochydore.
All about great food at great prices, Hello Harry became a fast favourite on the coast and was soon joined by Pan Asian place Junk Boat.
Fast forward a few years and the minds behind Harry and Junk, Tony Kelly and Scott Hoskins, have spread the two brands to Brisbane, the Goldie and Melbourne. And they’ve added a much-needed injection to the Toowoomba eats scene, giving us several standalone concepts (lucky us!).
They may have recently sold the Hello Harry franchise but it remains a local favourite along with its mates Junk and 2Birds at Walton Stores. Milk & Honey has just opened, giving life to the early morning coffee scene and they’re revamping The Office and getting ready to bring us a totally unique experience with Pyro.
Yeah, these guys are a little busy. We caught up with Tony at Milk & Honey recently to get the low down on all the business these hospitality masterminds have planned for Toowoomba.
Milk & Honey
“The general public in Toowoomba, more so than any other place we have business, they speak very clearly and loudly. They’re passionate about their food out here.”
Milk & Honey Espresso Bar opened on Monday 13 March in a super sweet spot in Ann Street, just off Chalk Drive (lots of parking – for your cars and your bicycles). The fit out is all airy and light with pretty blue couches, hanging lights, muted furnishings and large windows. Instagram rating: 10/10, would take photo.
The menu has been built around fast, fresh and tasty food – salads, wraps, sandwiches and an all day breakfast. Tony says speed and convenience is key to the offering.
“The grab and go concept I think is really critical,” Tony says. “Everyone lives such a frantic lifestyle that the speed of the food needs to be imperative. And great value for money.
“I don’t understand why bacon and eggs have to be $18 – we source the very best bacon we could buy, local free range eggs which are just unbelievable, there’s no preservatives, nothing in them – we’re selling them for between 10 and 12 bucks – there’s no reason why breakfast has to be so expensive.”
Fans of The Baker’s Duck will be pleased to know you don’t have to wait ‘til retail Saturdays to get your hands on a danish – they’re now supplying these to Milk & Honey.
“We take a golden rule, unless we can do it better, we don’t do it. We can’t do it better than that,” he says. “They could be baking in the middle of Paris and fit in perfectly fine.”
Turns out Toowoomba was eagerly awaiting the opening of Milk & Honey. Tony says in its first week in business it did double of what was forecasted.
“We couldn’t be happier. The general public in Toowoomba, more so than any other place we have business, they speak very clearly and loudly. They’re passionate about their food out here.
“Having such a blowtorch effect when you first open, it points out the holes you have in your business. But the holes are much easier to plug when you’re really busy than when you’re quiet. So we’re really fortunate that the locals have really grabbed hold of it.
“I always said I was never going to open a café because it was such a cutthroat market, but to see how people have reacted to Milk & Honey, it’s great. This morning at 6 o’clock there were 15 emergency services people lined up to have a coffee because they can’t get a coffee outside of McDonald’s here at 6am, and I get a great thrill out of that.”
Milk & Honey will trade every day of the year except Christmas Day – so search no longer for your public holiday hangout.
The Office
“We decided to build the Chelsea Bar so it’s nearly hidden, like a little den of a bar…It should have about 30 seats and will feature some of the best single malt whisky, Japanese whisky and cool eclectic gins and vodkas.”
Currently closed for renos, The Office is expected to reopen by the end of April, and Tony promises big changes.
“You won’t even recognise the place,” he says. “We see the feminine market in Toowoomba as extremely vocal, hence the feel of Milk & Honey, and you’ll definitely feel that in The Office as well. We’re really taking that hard, masculine Office and softening it up.”
When it reopens around Anzac Day (that’s a rough guide, the date is yet to be announced) you’ll find The Office will now have four distinct spaces: the laneway, the Chelsea Wine Bar, and upstairs and downstairs.
Originally planed for Walton Stores, the Chelsea Wine Bar will now be tucked away in The Office; a secluded, grown up space that draws inspiration from 1920s speakeasies.
“We decided to build the Chelsea Bar so it’s nearly hidden, like a little den of a bar,” Tony says. “It should have about 30 seats and will feature some of the best single malt whisky, Japanese whisky and cool eclectic gins and vodkas. That’ll be more of a real serious-style grown up bar.”
Downstairs, you’ll be able to hang outside in the laneway whatever the weather, thanks to the weatherproof and see-through roof that’s been shipped up from Melbourne.
“You can book a 21st or a 40th in that laneway and have it exclusively as your own and rain, hail, shine, you won’t get wet,” Tony says.
The actual Office spaces of upstairs and downstairs will be a playground of cool, energetic fun with live music and DJ sets. And the menu is getting a revamp too.
“We see a similar take to the food we’ve done at Junk, not Asian style, but smaller plates that can be shared, with like a cool Spanish tapas spin on it,” Tony says.
“We’ve already started some menu sampling with a couple of locals we know who were regulars at The Office beforehand, and it’s been received really well.”
Pyro BBQ
“There’ll be opportunity where you’ll literally sit at the kitchen and the chef will wait on the tables for you – I don’t know another restaurant in Queensland let alone Brisbane and Toowoomba where I’ve seen anything like that.”
A completely original concept for Toowoomba, Tony says Pyro is going to be nothing like you’ve seen before – anywhere.
Taking BBQ to the next level, Pyro is about imparting serious flavour to protein by cooking it on native hardwoods over flames and coals. Each wood gives a different sweet and smoky flavour. On the menu is local beef and lamb, Western Australian marron, local redclaw crayfish, and a huge range of vegetables with different dressings and sauces.
There’ll be a variety of different cooking methods – slow cooked, grilled, smoked, pulled and the chance to interact with the chefs themselves.
“It’s going to be an epic restaurant,” Tony says. “From a design perspective it’s very challenging because there’ll be no fryers, electric ovens – everything will be cooked over wood.
“There’ll be opportunity where you’ll literally sit at the kitchen and the chef will wait on the tables for you – I don’t know another restaurant in Queensland let alone Brisbane and Toowoomba where I’ve seen anything like that. It’s pretty cool.”
Tony says across all of their restaurants the food concepts revolve around taking great protein and doing very little with it. And BBQ provides the perfect vessel for letting our local produce shine.
“75% of suppliers will be located within 100km of Toowoomba,” he says. “I always say the best restaurants don’t necessarily have the best chefs or waiters, they’ve just got the best suppliers.”
Tony says their menus don’t change seasonally, but continuously, always adapting to what the local farmer has pulled out of the ground that morning.
Plus, there’ll be a strong drinks list too, with at least five whites, five reds and a few glasses of fizz – so the menu can be matched with your drinks.
About 80% of Pyro’s menu will be between $12 and $20, however there will be some larger share dishes that will be slightly more expensive, but designed for two people to eat.
It’ll be located in the Walton Stores area, and we’re looking at a loose late May/early June opening date. Perfect timing for winter comfort food!
Toowoomba Love
Their base is the Sunshine Coast but with so many fingers in so many Toowoomba pies Tony has spent a significant amount of time here on the hill lately.
He names Fitzy’s, Sofra, Parkhouse, Ground Up, Zev’s Bistro and The Spotted Cow as local performers who have helped pave the way for Toowoomba’s burgeoning foodie scene.
“When you have hospitality workers who all band together to get people out of their houses and out and about that’s what creates a culture and atmosphere in town,” Tony says.
“Guys like the Spotted Cow, Fitzy’s they’ve been amazing and we’re looking forward to getting stuck back into that market when The Office opens.”
What’s next?
Well, let’s see. In the past year they’ve opened Junk, Hello Harry, 2Birds and Milk & Honey. The Office and Pyro are still to come. Surely that’s enough?
Nope. Outside of Toowoomba these guys are motoring. Junk was recently opened in Brisbane’s Southbank and Melbourne’s theatre district in Punch Lane.
Melbourne was their most complex opening to date.
“We looked hard for the right site,” Tony says. We’ve got a really cool laneway site right in the middle of the theatre district, with arguably three of the best Asian restaurants in this country.
“It’s going to be funny to see Longrain Restaurant selling rice bowls for $40 a plate and Gingerboy selling Asian style seafood dishes for $50 a plate and then you’ve got Junk doing Junk for $10 a plate.
“The Sunshine Coast Junk has been a local hangout for all the chefs from Noosa. It would be pretty cool to have chefs from some of these best restaurants in Melbourne coming in for a bowl of ramen.”
Two more Junks are on the cards for this year in the southern states. Maybe Bendigo, maybe Ballarat, maybe Hobart. They love working regionally, it will just depend on what the market tells them.
“We’ll probably be a company that employees about 400 people by October,” Tony says. “To think it started only three years ago out of a humble little burger joint in Maroochydore it’s pretty overwhelming.”
