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Tin Roof Cafe & Pizza- MacArthur Street- Soldiers Hill- Ballarat

This little place just opened up a couple weeks ago just down the road from my usual neighborhood, and I decided to give it a go on its opening day.070520161899

The cafe’s fresh fitout is quite nice, and well thought out, with an emphasis on being light and airy.

That said, it isn’t anything original and unique, which screams “This is where da crew from Soldiers Hill hang out, alright”  and there are no low_riders parked on the curb…..

Ok, enough references to cypress hill. the band. Lets get back to the cafe. and all its copy-cat, me too potted plastic succulent table number markers.

070520161902The concept here seems to be cafe + pizza parlour + Souvlaki. Ok, that’s original. trying everything I suppose to see what the residents of the b-rat’s most famous and oldest neighbourhood want I suppose?

Upon entering, i was most dazzled by the horde of staff milling about- about a 2-1 ratio for the 6 odd customers that were settling in over lunch. Enthusiastic, young new starters, obviously, and hopefully getting paid for their likely “Trial day” I hope!

Anyway, the girls were friendly and cheerful, and I couldn’t fault the service, they certainly were keen, chatty and attentive, as was the probable owner, an older lady.070520161901

We ordered a couple coffees and a “soldiers hill special” pizza.

The pizza took a while to come out, and was tasty enough, but for $20 I was a little unastounded.

To be honest, it was probably the presentation that ruined it for me- the cheap looking shredded ham, highly visible on top of the pizza reminded me of a home modified Mccain or Pappa Guiseppe supermarket pizza, like the sort I might cook when feeling lazy, adding extra cheese and quality ingredients on top.

Maybe i’m being harsh though- the actual pizza is in the pic above- zoom in and take a look, judge for yourself.

Being an establishment that seemed like it was pitching for the more gourmet end of town, I was naturally nonplussed- I had imagined a kind of “pizza pie”, or wood fired deliciousness like I had had at other similarly priced Italian restaurants before.

That said, the pizza was pretty good, just not any better than I could make myself, which was what I was dearly hoping for. I spoke to the chef about, how it tasted a lot better than it looked, sensitively, of course,and he angrily rebuffed my feedback, suggesting I buy a “gourmet” line pizza off the menu next time, not a traditional. Maybe he was right, the other pizzas might be better.

070520161900

The silly hipster plastic pot plant of a succulent. Looks nice till you peer closely… then its just tacky.

Comment below if you give these guys a try. With an arrogant chef that doesn’t take feedback though, I’m not sure how long, he, or the business will last if the business model relied off late night pizzas.

One thing i do have regrets about though, was not trying the souvlaki they had on offer instead.

One of the excitable serving girls was having lunch next to us, and had chosen a big, tasty lamb souvlaki. We could SEE how big,  good, and fresh it looked, and could smell how delicious it was, even from the ten paces away to her table. We waved her over, and had a chat to her- she confirmed how ridiculously tasty it was.

Either way, the only competition is a little fish and chips place down the road on Doveton north, which I have tried, and their souvlaki was pretty average.

I’d say its a pretty safe bet that if you want a Souvlaki in solders hill, the Tin Roof might be a good place to go. It’s pizza, however, isn’t likely to be serious competition to THE FORGE on armstrong.

The coffee was ok, and i’ll come back here because its nice and close to where I regularly loiter in this neighborhood.

UPDATE! – I visited Tin Roof again a little while back, and tried out a souvlaki, and have just uploaded the pictures- you can read more about it here and see what the verdict is.

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