MENU STRATEGY
BRIEF BUT BANGIN’ WHILE MANY PUBS TRY TO APPEAL TO A WIDE VARIETY OF PATRONS WITH HEFTY MENUS, SOME PUBS ARE REVERTING TO COMPACT MENUS, VANESSA CAVASINNI REPORTS.
The Coop in Fortitude Valley offers a chicken-led menu The menu focuses on buttermilk fried chicken pieces
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t The Flying Cock in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, most of the late-night action happens upstairs on the pub’s first floor, with the ground floor dedicated to the venue’s more relaxed bistro offering. In mid-2017, the bistro was overhauled – both through menu and branding – as The Coop. As part of the overhaul, The Coop’s menu got rid of the standard steak and salad pub fare, and created a more compact menu that focused on speciality fried chicken, other chicken dishes, and the appropriate sides. Adam Hunter of The Coop Bistro and Flying Cock, said the drastic change was in response to quality F&B operators surrounding the venue, and the need to specialise its offering. “We went in with the mantra that we wanted to be known as ‘Brisbane’s Finest Chicken Pub’. We identified that there had been a real shift in the casual dining space over the past two years with a lot of operators shifting towards a concise offering and building a strong identity around what they were doing well.” The menu focuses on buttermilk fried chicken pieces, wings in 500g or one kilo servings, burgers and sides such as corn, fries and onion rings. It also features a classic chicken parmigiana and schnitzel. One of the contributing factors for the move to a more concise menu was the kitchen size and layout. “The design of the building means our main kitchen is both small and open – visible to patrons from the bar. At its busiest, we’d never have any more than four chefs on at any one time, and operate with two fryers, a large oven, grill cooktop and several prep stations,” explains Hunter. A second prep kitchen is located directly below the main kitchen, primarily used for prep throughout the week, for tasks such as making all of The Coop’s sauces in-house and prepping large amounts of slaw. A dumbwaiter moves stock and produce between the two levels to boost the efficiency of the two kitchens.
26 | SEPTEMBER 2018 AUSTRALIAN HOTELIER
Fried chicken burger with pickled pawpaw, iceberg lettuce, cheese and nori mayonnaise
