Paul who?
Macca=popular, affectionate nickname for Paul McCartney.
They’re all over the place in New Jersey. We have a major diner culture going on here.
And I doubt Route 22 in Union would be considered a “tourist area.” 
Is this a European, N American, British Commonwealth thing, being closed after certain hour. I have travelled all over the mid east and I have noticed that the place remains open late into the night, and in major citys , never really shuts down at all. I have had food at 3 am in Dubai, Karachi, Mumbai, Istanbul no matter what part of the town, but never in London or Paris.
When I wrote my post, I started talking about The Coffee Club as the closest match to a big chain of restaurants/cafes. Then I thought otherwise and scrapped it. I think The Coffee Club is too “up-market” relative to the likes of Denny’s.
I suppose Sizzler is probably a closer match because of the types of food, but Hog’s Breath is too good and too “up-market” as well. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think The Coffee Club or Hog’s Breath are posh, but when compared to the Waffle House or IHOP or Denny’s they certainly are the next level up. IMHO.
I’ve never heard him called that over here. I suppose we’re not big fans of Paul McCartney.
I think you’re onto something here. That is one factor I hadn’t really thought of, Maccas is shit food but by god it’s cheap as hell.
Starbucks’ Australian expansion is a prime example of a corporate “epic fail”. I’m not suprised they failed so miserably - I tried their coffee and it was awful! I was stunned that it was so bad yet so expensive, everyone else I knew and worked with seemed to think so too.
Why on earth would a company try to launch sub-standard coffee at premium prices in a market that’s flooded with everything from poor to high quality coffee from a kazillion cafes at low prices. It was just absurd, it was like they did no market research whatsoever.
There’s certainly an element of “trendyness” at The Coffee Club, and they’re not especially cheap, either- Part of the appeal of a diner is that the food isn’t especially expensive or “cosmopolitan”. It’s kind of hard to explain. Also, they’re supposed to have cheap filtered coffee and serve breakfast type dishes all the time.
But yeah, there’s definitely a gap in Australia between, say, The Coffee Club and Hog’s Breath. Sizzler is probably the closest but there’s not many of those- about 10 in the whole country I think- and being a quasi-buffet it’s usually packed and not really the place for a leisurely coffee and medium-sized meal. It wouldn’t take much for The Coffee Club to expand into something approximating a diner… doesn’t have to be 24 hours, but even a 2am closing at select locations would be a great start.
And Starbucks in Australia is quite an amusing story. I don’t mind their coffee but the whole Starbucks “thing” was just (IMHO) entirely too pretentious and wanky for Aussies. Also, there’s a lot of competition here (in the form of Gloria Jeans, Zaraffas, The Coffee Club, etc) and countless independent cafes that make excellent coffee at reasonable prices and don’t give everything stupid Italian-sounding names and encourage their customers to hug trees on the way home.
I agree, that Sizzlers, etc are more upmarket than the Denny’s type place. That was my point that Australia just flat out does not have anything that fills that same niche that is serviced by Denny’s/Ihop/etc. It’s a curious question as to why that is? I personally have no answer for it.
The only thing I could think of was that Cafe’s are a slightily different but somewhat complementary niche, so that diner market just doesn’t exist here, as we went down the Cafe road, rather than diners. Maybe I’m completely off base?
Good thread, Martini Enfield.
I, too, used to work nightfill and have often wondered why there is such a lack of late night food options. Near where I live in Melbourne, there’s a 24 hour Maccas, a 2am kebab shop but precious little else open after 10pm.
I have noticed that The Pancake Parlour have been aggressively promoting the “24 hour openness” of some of there stores on the radio for some time, so perhaps they are trying to carve out the niche you speak of. But my last memory of going in to a Pancake Parlour was horrendously overpriced food, so I don’t go there.
I can also remember going to a restaurant either in, or near, Tullamarine, that seemed to be 24 hours. I don’t think it was The Pancake Parlour, but it was a similar set up. Still a bit pricey though.
Cause it worked in the US. There was no shortage of coffee options here and decent coffee was available at any infinite number of diners and donut shops for less than a buck. But, for whatever reason it worked. I’m not a coffee drinker so I’m not sure if the quality was just that much better than average when it first started or what. I wonder if the coffee offered in the Aussie Starbucks was particulalry bad for some reason, or if there’s something about the Aussie palate that hated the Starbucks blend.
An aside: doesn’t Australia have a good-sized population of Greek immigrants? In the Buffalo area, Greek-Americans make up only a small portion of the population, but it seems like every one of them owns or manages a diner, and a good many of them are open 24 hours. They don’t have a reputation for great food, but they’re known for very good breakfast food (served all day, in most cases), and just about everything else you’ll find will be decent enough. The Greek diner is very much an institution in Buffalo, as well as some other American cities.
How about Greeks in Australia? Are they disproportionately involved in the restaurant business? Are there Greek diners in Australia? It would seem strange that some of them haven’t gone the 24-hour route.
Yep, that’s why I inquired if **Queen Tonya ** meant Wayne, NJ earlier in the thread. I grew up there and there are 24-hour diners everywhere. Not for tourists, but for road travelers, late shift workers, and people who are out partying to the wee hours and need food at 3 AM.
When Starbucks was first starting up in Australia there was talk in some gentrified places of banning them (Balmain I’m looking at you). At the time I used to, most weekends, have coffee at a cafe in Parramatta. I was talking to the barista there about the bannings and he said they wouldn’t be necessary. He said he had worked all over the world and the one place he thought that had no idea what makes good coffee was the US. He said that coffee there is served so hot that you can’t tell good coffee from bad coffee. He thought that the Italian background to most coffee making in Australia would kill off Starbucks anyway. Turned out he was right. Many people I know tried Starbucks once, proclaimed it rubbish and never returned.
Yeah, what don’t ask said.
Fussy American drinkers of coffee have told me that Starbucks coffee was generally much better than the other coffee available in small towns or in suburban areas.
Australia has instant coffee drinkers (who don’t want to pay Starbucks prices) and espresso drinkers (who don’t want to pay Starbucks prices for average coffee).
Bear in mind too that Starbucks was a new thing in the US. By the time Starbucks tried to move in to Australia, it was a well-known behemoth, and its reputation had already been established, fairly or not, as a corporate destroyer that made nasty coffee. In the US, it was trendy to like Starbucks for social reasons; it was something new and funky. In Oz, it was trendy to dislike Starbucks for social reasons, because it was something established and square.
Yeah, the one place you can always find something to eat is at an interstate exit. Sometimes there are TWO Waffle Houses, one on each side. The day I see a Waffle House that isn’t open 24 hours is the day I hang my hat up and die. (One of the local IHOPs stopped being open 24 hours, though. Broke my heart, it did.)
Up in Pittsburgh instead of stuff like Waffle House they got Eat and Park, and the one we went to after a seriously delayed flight was 24 hours. Also tasty.
I also want to add that in the US you can get a regular coffee at Starbucks for like $1.50. It’s not $6 like people like to claim. So if that’s what they were charging for plain coffee in Australia, no wonder it failed.
Maybe an Australian style diner, or Waffle/Pancake house would do well by an "iconic gimmick " and menu that is natively Australian. Much as the iconic diners in America have a tradition of being old rail car diners.
Also, most diners in the US specialize in the classic bacon/sausage, eggs, potatoes, pancakes, waffles, french toast, and omelets breakfast fare. They are primarily a breakfast restaurant. What passes for classic breakfast in Australia? I’m not even sure… do you guys do a “fry up” traditionally, or are you guys more of a light breakfast people? That could go a long way toward determining if an American style diner could catch on.
What is iconic to Australia and what do people want to eat in the wee hours in Australia would be my first question?
New Zealand poster here. Just addressing some of the “side notes” first.
“maccas” is used for McDonalds here but mainly by the under 21 set. Its also a nickname for Sir Paul.
CBD is used here but mainly in print. Most New Zealanders would say they were “going into town” if they were going to a city centre.
& I agree that Starbucks is awful & overpriced. If I was going to have coffee at a chain or franchise I would go to Bee Bees (sp) Columbia or Sierra. Last time I went to have a coffee in Auckland’s CBD on a Sunday I couldn’t find anything but Starbucks or in Italian bread place that only had stools. Afterwards I noticed that Vulcan Lane had a couple of pubs open that served coffee & I will go there next time.
There are Dennys in NEw Zealand. I’ve checked their website & they are open 24 hours. But in NZ outside MacDonalds, & the (very rare) Dennys it would be hard to find 24 hour food. A couple of years ago we went to a wedding on a Friday night that only served finger food. We were starving afterwards & all we could find open at midnight was a Dominos (i’d forgotten about Dennys & MacDonalds being open that late is a relatively new thing here)