Crumb Street Kitchen

The busiest and most popular restaurant in town currently has got to be Crumb Street Kitchen (or CSK as it is more familiarly known), at 144 Harrington Street.

I am a Face Book friend, so get sent all their FB entries, and every day it’s the same…..”sorry guys, we’ve sold out”….at around early/mid afternoon. So it would appear if you want to eat their food, you need to get there spot on at 12.00 or you miss out.

They very cleverly have thought of the most popular food Australians love – ever! BBQ’d meat. Well-cooked and smoked BBQ meat. So you have a small but compact menu with a few ways to have each days BBQ offering.

All food is served in a pizza box, whether you are getting it to take away or eat in at one of the four or five tables. The plastic cutlery and assorted sauces are kept on the front counter so you can pop over there if you need to, from your table. Very smart = no washing up required!

The décor is shabby, pseudo-trendy chic. It was obviously done on a budget but in this place it really doesn’t matter. The clientele is a mixed bag. I have never seen such an eclectic bunch of customers coming and going as at this little restaurant. There are old, pot-gutted guys in singlets queuing up for food alongside families with young children, and smart-looking Sandy Bay-ites.

When you order, you select and pay, and they ask for your first name. Your name is subsequently called out by chef when he brings your pizza box full of ordered goodies out of the kitchen and leaves it on the counter for you.

The menu is pretty limited to whatever meat the owner/chef has managed to have had time to slow cook overnight (around 10 hours) the night before, served in a few ways. Mainly in sandwich form (you get a pile each of the separate fillings you have ordered plus bread, in your pizza box, then make it up yourself at your table, within the confines of the pizza box) or soft taco form.

Yesterday you could get:

TACO

burnt brisket     $7

eggplant            $4.50

bean                 $3.50

SANDWICH

pulled pork in brioche bun with coleslaw           $10

shaved brisket  with BBQ sauce                       $7

The prices are very reasonable, and the food tasty. The concept is brilliant.

We ordered two pulled pork brioche buns with the coleslaw (one to drop off at Bec’s friend who was at work), and a serve of the burnt brisket taco with some BBQ sauce. It came in the same pizza box, so was easy to transport home. Bec wanted to try the food at CSK, and ate most of it. I was merely an interested onlooker, so only sampled each item.

To be honest, the food didn’t really excite me, but that’s beside the point. It excites pretty well everyone who goes there, and that’s the main thing. I note today that the owner/chef comments that it must be time for them to open another shop (which, at this stage, would have nothing to sell, given that they run out of food in the Harrington Street outlet so quickly!) either on the eastern shore, or northern suburbs or Kingston.

I reckon it would be easy for them to franchise it out, then they would have great suburban coverage, and, an added bonus would be that they themselves are now the distributors for one of the BBQ’s they use. Call me stupid but I foresee as many CSK’s as there are Banjo outlets, down the track!  

Crumb Street Kitchen
144 Harrington Street
Hobart
Ph: 6234 7002