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![What happened?They whacked him. They fu***ng whacked Jimmy.Aw, f**k...Motherf**ker![Cries] [Narrating] It was revenge fo...](https://img4.melbournemeal.com/895/677/1924276228956770.jpg)
01/10/2026
What happened?
They whacked him. They fu***ng whacked Jimmy.
Aw, f**k...
Motherf**ker!
[Cries]
[Narrating] It was revenge for the sando pop up, and a lot of other things. We got greedy and used too much. And there was nothing that we could do about it. The mushroom people were made man, and Jimmy wasn't. And we had to sit still and take it. It was among the specialty fruit & vegetable suppliers. It was real greaseball s**t. They even shot Jimmy in the face so his mother couldn't give him an open coffin at the funeral...
30/09/2026
As I'm still currently recovering from the weekends s**tkicking and am two kitchen staff down due to illness and one plucky persons need to recreate Wake In Fright as a holiday mishap, I'll keep this short.
Want work? We have work. Must have some gentle hospo experience and feel enthusiastic about vegetables. 2-3 shifts a week at the moment but it is getting busier and accidents do happen, so the only thing stopping your inevitable takeover is your hunger for power and access to power tools.
Send a message if keen
Chur
28/09/2026
As the back spasms have relented enough for me to regain some upright motion I will pause and reflect on the baptism of fire that yesterday was.
Thank you everyone for coming through. That was intense. That line was intense. That was what i imagine Haile Selassie felt looking out the window of his plane as people stormed the tarmac.
And rest assured will never be doing that again...
The good - pretty happy with the speed with which we were able to pump stuff out, 150 odd sandwiches in 90 minutes with some steep learning curves as to how to manage that kind of volume. I thought they tasted good as well when i finally had a chance to sit down on an upturned milk crate at the end and contemplate what id witnessed. Bit salty, but that was probably from the tears streaming down my face as my gaze lingered on the pile of goo that was all that was left of the person on fryers.
The hmmm - novelty names for sandos are all well and good until you have no idea what it means when someone screams at you that you need 4 white light from the mouth of infinity, 2 cops but hold the filth, and a single serve of my father will guide me up a rope to the sky. Lets never do that again.
And the bad - oh the per head spend and drink sales. 150 sandwiches. 30 drinks.
More people turned up with takeaway drinks from other businesses than purchased in house. Do you want $30 sandwiches? Thats how you get $30 sandwiches... 4 pints of b**r sold. Do you know how many the kitchen staff drank? Those mighty thirsty bois... 260 pints. They did their bit. Such heroes.
So tired. So goddamn tired. But that was fun i think and i do like myself a challenge. What next on the horizon?
Oktoberfest?
Tacos?
Taco roast?
Cronuts?
Cupcakes?
Burgers?
Jesus wept...
26/09/2026
IF YOU EVER FELT HUNGOVER
IF YOU EVER FELT REJECTED BY MEREDITH
IF YOU EVER FELT YOUR SHARE HOUSE HAD MOULD
IF YOU EVER FELT YOUR V**E WAS RUNNING LOW
IF YOU EVER FELT YOU WERE “JUST DOING HOSPO FOR A BIT”
IF YOU EVER FELT YOU SHOULD PROBABLY MOVE BACK TO NEW ZEALAND
BE PREPARED TO FEEL…
BALLARD'S SANDO POPUP
We're absolutely not a cult. Just a perfectly organised little event from 1pm today for the fun of something new.
Sandwiches. Baked things. Fried things. Bloody mary's.
Ive been up since 7am making bread and am
feeling peppy...
25/09/2026
Dear Mr Ballard's, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole public holiday working and being punished for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us listen to you tell us who you think we are. You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions.
But what we found out is that each one of us is
A v**e smoker
A share house mould survivor
A Meredith attendee
A recently arrived New Zealander
and a part time DJ
Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the I'm about to call in sick club because i got wankered on a Thursday
24/09/2026
Open all weekend and even Sunday arvo (because I'm a goddamn moron) so unless someone Martin Sheen's me by being an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill there'll be no down time for me. God i hate long weekends...
23/09/2026
God i love the automatic notions of googles AI assessment. The way it has unquestioningly paraphrased an instagram or facebook post and gone with a conclusive summary that post rock sandwich event is happening, please come dressed as your favourite member of Slint - prizes for saddest, wettest midwesterner (please note: only 3 David Pajo's will be allowed inside at any one time). My work here is done. My promotion is secured. My bar service is assured and my sandos are popping. I am ready. Well ready once i work out why my dough mixer appears to have blown up...
22/09/2026
Now, as a habitual line-stepper and self-sabotager, my attitude towards the majority of technology has always been to regard it as idiot-proofing for lead-poisoned matcha drinkers whose exposure to heavy metals will once again usher in a golden age of serial killers and, hopefully, series three of Mindhunter.
Technology is a barrier to community. Every online booking platform a denial of decency. Every digital POS system with a kitchen printer another barrier being raised. Every automated AI chatbot a lie.
The fires that burn within me are fuelled by the constant irritation of spending my days confronted by petty reminders that while the individual can be superb, the mob shouldn’t be allowed near water without floaties, as someone calls me for the 12th time to enquire what time their 7:30pm booking is for.
You know… normal stuff. I don't want this removed because i'm worried I'll lose my edge.
But like a person who swears this is the last time they’re using the convenience and low prices of Amazon to make a purchase, I am losing my humanity one concession at a time, accepting my fate in the warm embrace of our own destruction at the hands of digital supremacy.
Digital supremacy like our BRAND NEW WEBSITE!
A website that was not simply thrown together as a placeholder for those who regard a page as unprofessional because they’re elitist pigs who believe the ability to buy a domain name is the hallmark of quality.
Now, I would never have done this myself, as I keep a loaded pistol on my nightstand in case my analogue printer beeps. Cylons. Always Cylons.
But the magnificent offered to gussy the whole thing up for reasons that remain unexplained, and we now have a visual feast of art filled with New Zealand-based Easter eggs and some light choking.
I believe that is either Marco Pierre White or Henry Cavill throttling me, but I’m too scared to clarify.
It has vibes. It’s us. It’s perfect.
So feast your eyes.
It’s even easy to update the menu.
(I won’t. I’m not gonna lie.)
No excuses.
And I, for one, eagerly await the dominance of Skynet.
21/09/2026
Would you cook for me? I’d cook for me. I’d cook for me so hard.
Don't feel like doing the set menu? Thats ok you can make all your own choices and get exactly what you want. Isn't that right precious!
20/09/2026
"How many FOH shifts is this for you?"
"Thirty eight... simulated."
"How many actual Friday night services ?"
"Uh, two. Including this one"
It's a causal job. You'll need some experience and we all know the training simulations leave a little to be desired. It'll be 2-3 shifts a week and does include weekends. I'm not gonna lie and write a thousand words about ethos, culture and value. Those are just hollow words delivered with a straight face by the worst people you'll ever meet so we can just skip that. You're a grunt in the machine, a soldier in the corp, and this business has a substantial dollar value attached to it so please refrain from nuking it from orbit.
You'll be replacing those who have betrayed us by getting a "real" job in a field that isn't hospitality because they clearly think they're better
And remember, the customers mostly come at night... mostly...
20/09/2026
In this kitchen we respect the French and despise the convenient hybridisation of culture, so we use only the traditional, tiny and demandingly irritating classic shallot. That unholy spawn of an onion, the goddamn banana shallot, the nepo baby of the allium family, belongs in the bin, no matter how convenient it might be.
Good things take time and the results speak for themselves.
Unless, of course, it’s me who has to peel and chop them. In which case I’ll get a little kilo bag of the long f**kers in for myself
19/09/2026
As a small business owner and chef, I must admit to a level of insecurity when it seems like everybody else gets to have deep-seated personal relationships with growers and farmers, while I struggle to even find a generic vege middleman I won’t eventually watch being detained by police outside my premises as he screams that he doesn’t recognise the power of the state because he’s a sovereign citizen.
I’m just jealous, I guess.
Every time I go out to eat, I end up having some FOH superstar tell me how they spent the day amongst the fields of the Bellarine, where a farmer showed them a tomato that tasted like the sun because it had poetry written on its skin. They were hand-fed morsels freshly plucked from ancient vines before crying together as they realised that everything will one day die.
Meanwhile, I’m left staring at a box of suspiciously “wet” tomato seconds that speak in monotones and dance like Marc Almond.
How do I meet lonely farmers? Is it on Hinge? Are there private parties like in Eyes Wide Shut, where entrance is gatekept by elites who have the time and privilege to spend a pleasant afternoon foraging while I’m still unclogging my own shunts like a goddamn peasant? Maintaining my wage costs is the difference between paying the power bill and researching squatters’ rights, rather than deciding whether to buy a second yacht.
My class insecurity will never leave me, I guess.
If you know where the old seeds still sing, tell me. I am a giant ear, wanting to meet those who till the land from Jeeps and Beamers for the wealthy who believe packaging and veneers are where true value lies.
But I make do with nothing but skill, salt and a box of discount seconds.
And these tomatoes sing.
They sing of texture and time. Of being dried and brined. Of being draped across delicate brioche and adorned with a feta made from caper brine.
Words.
19/09/2026
God, I love the moral superiority of an opening shift
18/09/2026
Oh asparagus - such a delight for the first few weeks as its seasonal novelty delights but then you just start resenting its existence and it out stays its welcome like an old house mate crashing on your couch for a few days that become months as you realise that as we're both in our 40's now why are you even here...
Anyhoo... spring. It's a spring dish. With a ribbon in its hair and a sun dress bellowing in the gentle breeze its time is now and it is happy because it doesn't realise in a few minutes it will be violently attacked by the council's deployment of the riot squad to remove happy picnickers from the canning st median strip in civic overreach and general imprudence.
Would i call this dish asparagus, potato & sauce gribiche?
The words are perhaps true but then that is like calling Jason Derulo's song "Ridin' solo" just a song rather than an anthem for fierce individualism and generational uprising.
Technically true but doesn't do it justice.
Potatos are thinly sliced, pressed and baled for a few hours before being sliced and fried.
Asparagus is cleaned, blanched in grilled before being charred and dressed with preserved lemon.
The green sauce is made from blanched zucchini skins, dijon and parsley that has lightly pickled white zucchini dice folded through to replicate the required egg that gives gribeche its signature flavour. Finished off soft herbs and capers. Sunshine on a plate.
17/09/2026
Do you ever think the huxtable burger chain watched that s**t storm of rightful comeuppance enveloping bill Cosby and thought...faaaarrrrk... we really backed the wrong horse in this nostalgia race.
There they were, just gently trying to piggy back on faded happy memories with menu descriptions such as here’s the chilli burger, we call it the denise burger cos she’s the hot one hurgh hurgh, and then wham, you’ve just opened another franchise opportunity and you see that google alert letting you know that one of your burgers is named after one of histories worst evers and you just think s**t....
Or then theres the college dropout burger saga. Sometimes its hard to pick what horse to back in these attempts at cross branding.
But I'm sure I'll never regret naming our stuff from Swans albums, why he used to date Madonna and no one evil has ever dated madonna...
Sando pop up
Sunday 27th from 1pm
Why 1pm and not you know earlier? Because I'll have to get the bread on and I'm not getting up at 6am to proof bread for people that do things on Sundays.
Might take bookings. Might not. Might be first in best dressed. Will probably be order and pay at the bar like a fun pub time. Remember fun. Like a live swans album, one of the earlier ones i reckon.
Post rock sando's for post sando rockers
17/09/2026
After a big surge in followers brought about by the eternal support of one , the patron saint of what we do here at Ballard's, I initially thought I should just do a gentle picture of food with some kind of "mmmm yummo" type of copy but then realised that id only be able to keep that up for about 60 minutes before something irritated me and i was back to being passive aggressive so lets just rip that band aid off and get to the heart of Ballard's social media - a hatred for banal dog based business content and an enthusiasm for naked French men. There - I've done you a favour and speed ran you into things. You're welcome
16/09/2026
Oh you silly geese, you're all being exploited!
A story I was told years ago was about a fight breaking out at a pool table between Press Club chefs and the Scott Pickett crew from St Crispin where the taunts about working for a tv chef were ever so cruel.
Silly chefs... you'll both get f**ked over equally and be delivering oil for Cookers within 10 years after your back gives out so let's put aside our differences and get some pitchfork's and head towards the good food offices.
15/09/2026
Chat gpt has asked me to leave quietly without making a scene
15/09/2026
Theres always something powerfully erotic about seeing all your mise set up and ready to go.
Its how I imagine a young Stanley Kubrick would have felt stealing a glance thru the window of a delicatessen in the Bronx as the workers perfectly sliced piece after piece of cold cuts and assorted other sundries to meet the precise demands of those they served. Each piece exactly the same. Weighed. Sliced. Weighed. Then sliced.
Precision. Perfection. Powerfully erotic. Like all good kitchens.
14/09/2026
All those other shops with their sandwich shop tricks
They better run, better run to outrun all the fun we're gonna have at our coming sando pop up!
So many test batches of bread. All designed to achieve perfect bread to filling ratio. Perfect textural crunch to bounce. Perfect bread flavour to perfect filling taste.
No flashing the bat signal to baker bleu here. Nope, im stupid enough to try and bulk cook schiacciata style bread with my only guide on this journey being a 30 year old turbofan oven called Al, an observer from my own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Tamlyn can see and hear.
This batch is about 10-15% underweight from where i want it to be but even then i made myself a sandwich and it was goddamn delicious.
Sunday 27th. I have no more details available as were still fine tuning the logistics. Table servixe? Bookings? Neither? Dehumanising lines? Order at the bar and we yell out only vague descriptions of who ordered?
Two chimmichurri for a wispy moustache and rats tail? No not yet Kirin J Callinan, there are about another 30 ahead of you in the queue matching that description this is Naarm after all...
14/09/2026
Normally most of the DMs I receive are abusive threats calling me “an edgelord” because of the things I write, which I always find a bit irritating really because:
A: I was banned from 4chan for political reasons.
B: I never really liked South Park.
C: I consider what I write to be more like a metaphorical snakeskin jacket, a symbol of my individuality, my belief in personal freedom, and my belief in accountability for people who don’t understand how booking times work.
So it was nice to receive something different for once: a multitude of messages demanding that our last roast night had better not actually have been our last roast night. Either people had missed out, or it had been so good they lusted for more roasts, roasts whose potato like ge****ls were like those of donkeys and whose gravy emission's were like that of horses.
Poetic. Probably even biblical.
One person even said they were flying into Melbourne to run the marathon that day, and the only thing they thought could get them through the agony of bleeding ni***es was the hope that a Ballard’s roast awaited them beyond the finish line.
And who would I be to say no?
Sunday October 11th. From 5pm. $38pp including dessert. So much food. Books out every time.
Is this the last time?
Only you can answer that riddle.
12/09/2026
We've run out of synonyms for oily salty covered failure you wet log
12/09/2026
If you're anything like me you are currently in the process of tightly wrapping discarded tea towels round your clenched fists before dipping them into buckets of broken glass in anticipation of another evening of blood sport or as the layperson calls it "footy final fever" so you probably won't be requiring a table away from the action tonight.
But for those of you that aren't interested in what one man in small shorts wants secretly in his heart from the other man in small shorts then we can probably look at arranging something for you.
Inside is pretty chockers but I've cleared some space by the bins as the weathers pearler and the grease trap is mostly down wind. Romantic.
Book now before I start working the groin of my opponents like JCVD in his prime.
11/09/2026
< addressing the assembled kitchen freaks> now gang… working in a kitchen with me is much like being in the Brian Jonestown massacre.
It’s 90% plagiarism from other better sources, I am an unhinged madman who looks like the co**se of a wet sailor and there is a suspiciously large amount of sitar somewhere. Like seriously can you guys hear that? It’s like having Ravi Shankar living inside my skull… anyhoo…
But we get results!
What draws my admiration? What is that which gives me joy? Cooking! As an executive chef I stand alone in a laneway having my photograph taken and taking all the credit. This is the time for what? For individual achievement. That’s right. There i stand alone. But in the kitchen, what? Part of a team. Teamwork... we cook, we pass, we plate, and we hustle. Part of one big team. If the team doesnt follow me... what am I? No one. That’s right.
So tonight’s a big night. Boy do we have bookings, the courtyards full of foodies. What do I have to say? I'm gonna go out there for myself? Pfft - the photoshoots can wait because I get nowhere unless the team wins.
: Team! Team! Team!
One more thing, when you have an all out prize fight, it is only when that fight is over, when one guy is left standing, that's how you know who won. And we will win.
10/09/2026
Like a tiny plant based richard milhouse nixon, the first extract from forthcoming recipe book slash memoir is getting even with my detractors and college elites.
Address
915 High Street Thornbury
Melbourne, VIC
3071
For those taking public transportation, take the train/bus to Thornbury station and walk down High Street. The restaurant will be on your left.
For those driving, take High Street towards Thornbury. There is street parking available along High Street and surrounding streets.
Opening Hours
| Wednesday |
6pm - 10pm |
| Thursday |
6pm - 10pm |
| Friday |
6pm - 10pm |
| Saturday |
6pm - 10pm |
| Sunday |
6pm - 10pm |
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What people say
Ballard's 915 high st thornbury is a must-visit for all vegetarian and vegan food lovers. This all-vegan food and wine bar offers a homely and delicate menu that is sure to satisfy your taste buds. The casual tunes and quality drinks add to the overall ambiance of the restaurant, making it a perfect spot for a night out with friends or family.
The restaurant's location on High Street Thornbury makes it easily accessible for everyone. The menu boasts an array of delicious vegan dishes that are sure to impress even non-vegans. From starters to desserts, every dish is prepared with utmost care and attention to detail.
Although their $14 parma night offer may be coming to an end soon, there are still plenty of reasons to visit Ballard's 915 high st thornbury. Their commitment to providing high-quality vegan food in a cozy atmosphere is truly commendable.
So, whether you're a vegan or simply looking for some delicious plant-based options, Ballard's 915 high st thornbury should definitely be on your list of go-to restaurants in Melbourne. Book now and experience the magic of this amazing vegan food and wine bar!
