Taking it to the streets!

Food trucks are the way forward and provide us with a piece of Hellenic memory in a parkland in Melbourne


Whenever I visit Patras, I always visit the canteen on the shores of Rio. There I always stop to eat skewers on my way to my hometown. But never in a million years did I expect such a canteen – that is so reminiscent of my Greek experience – to be here in Australia.

In January this year, Greek Australian restaurateur George Karanikos started his own food van called Greek Street Food, where he’s taken the ethos of the canteens in Greece and combined it with the very modern eating trend of food trucks. He wanted to extend on his restaurant Pireaus Blues, nicely nestled in the hub of Fitzroy’s busy Brunswick Street.

“I think that there has been a big shift in the way people dine and eat these days,” George tells Neos Kosmos.

“I believe that even in the restaurants it has moved away from the three dishes – entrée, main and dessert combination – to a more mezedakia style, people are dining more tapas style.”

He adds that nowadays, people have a much more relaxed attitude to the way they eat, which is self-evident in the way the food truck industry has grown from strength to strength in such a short time.

“The experience is that people come out with their families, their kids, their friends, and we park a lot of the time near parklands where people can take their food, sit down, relax and enjoy – and it is restaurant quality food, it is not the old style van eating where food was of inferior quality.”
George is no stranger to the hospitality industry, having co-run Pireaus Blues for nearly ten years, but this way the late nights may be a thing of the past as he ventures into this new foodie experience.

“There are a lot of late nights, whereas in this industry here everything is finished by 9 o’clock, so it was a choice of lifestyle, which was one of the main reasons I got involved in this. So that’s one of the positive things about this industry.”

He says the standard of food is as high as what is served in the restaurant. He uses the best quality meats for his yiros, fillet meat, always fresh ingredients with salads and dips.

“We set our standards high and we live by it, we swear by it. I will not put anything else in the van other than good quality food.

“We are building up a reputation and it is working quite well at the moment; our name is getting out there and I will not comprise quality.”
Due to the low overheads of running a food truck, he can offer low prices but keep the quality high.

“Amongst the industry – and there are ratings in the van industry – we’ve been in the top five since we started, which is quite good. Everyone in the van industry maintains the price range of products from $8-$12.

His truck can be found most days around Darebin and Moreland or at Yarraville Park.

“A lot of councils like the idea of having vans to work in their vicinity,” George says of the support of not only local councils, but also his fellow food trucks.
“It is not hard getting a licence as long as you do the right thing, you go by the rules. For us, since we started with the idea and then built the van to suit our needs until we took it out in the street, took us about 12 months.”

Already he has built a solid reputation and was even asked to attend this year’s Melbourne Good Food and Wine Festival.

“We met some beautiful people and the people that follow us through social media, we have a great following, and that creates a certain clientele, a lot of young people, a lot of people that work with social media.

“A lot of parents bring their kids out, and going back to price, the reason I structured it like this, I did it so everyone can enjoy the product, so that the pensioner can have it as well and afford to pay for it.”

George has always enjoyed working with people. Before the food industry, he worked in the fashion industry but was drawn to food because of the social interaction. For him “both industries are under one banner – the only thing that changes is the product”.

“We have a lot of passers by but 70 per cent of our clientele know where we are through social media and they come and find us.

“Every morning I will post on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook where we are going to be on that day and the hours we operate and a lot of our trade is through that. We are always around parks. I did not advertise anywhere else apart from social media and word of mouth.”

And through the power of social media he has created a mini empire.

“We get a lot of Greeks and it is fantastic with our own,” he says excitedly. “It is amazing what the van has done for them. We are all very proud people.
“On purpose sometimes when I am taking the van back home or I am going out I pass by High Street, you know, the Greek cafes there, and as they are having their coffee they see the van and you cannot imagine the response I get, smiles and cheers from them. It is unbelievable.

And the same smiles are on the faces of the people who are reminded of a Greek sunset, beachside souvlaki as they consume their little piece of Hellenic heaven in Melbourne.

Follow Greek Street Food on Twitter to find out their locations @gsfoodau