Remember the days when your local milk bar was flooded with hungry school kids by 3pm, craving a milk shake and a bagful of hot chips? If that makes you nostalgic, then the good news is that all this is back in the form of Tuck Shop Take Away in Caulfield.

The first venture from husband-and-wife team Clinton and Karina Serex, Tuck Shop Take Away is a nod to a past carefree era. With old-school desks and chairs, world maps and even milkshakes served in glass milk bottles with paper straws, this little milk bar meets cafe is sure to spark memories for anyone.

The pair isn’t exactly new to hospitality – Clinton has worked for the likes of Ripponlea’s Attica and Vue de Monde, while Karina spent time at Fat Duck under the guidance of Heston Blumenthal. However the decision to open up their own shop was somewhat sudden. “We wanted to work on the theme of a great family takeaway. There’s nothing really like it in the area and we thought, ‘Hey, this works perfectly then’. We’re very nostalgic with the theme; we like the idea of playing on memory through great food,” says Clinton.

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Written up in chalk, the menu is short and classic with a twist, often mixing sweet and salty flavours in a nod to Karina’s experiences working with Blumenthal. Peanut butter milkshakes, burgers (including the ‘veggie wedgie’ lentil and rice burger), jaffles, hand-cut fries, exotic soft-serve flavours (like chocolate pretzel or salted caramel popcorn), Redskin chocolate brownies (a favourite) and even their choc ‘chip’ cookies, which are chewy and have a mix of dark chocolate and Kettle chips inside them, comprise the menu. If that doesn’t sound good enough, everything – except for the mustard and the burger buns – is made onsite from locally sourced and free-range ingredients. The milkshake syrups, the sodas, pickles, chips and even the sweet-salty soft-serves.

There’s also the option of a range of teas, provided by Storm In A Teacup (already steeped for you and served in a thermos) and single origin coffee from Monk Bodhi Dharma.

Tuck Shop Take Away brings you a heaping of nostalgia, a serving of fries and a whole lot of goodness in this tiny old-school milk bar.

Tuck Shop Take Away
273 Hawthorn Road, Caulfield North

0431 406 580

Hours
Mon to Thurs 11am–8pm
Fri & Sat 11am–9pm

facebook.com/TuckShopTakeAway