Scott Hawkins
The American hotdog meets the old Australian sausage sizzle at Woofys.
Much as we love a good Bunnings sausage sizzle, let alone the sorts of show dogs offered of late by the likes of The Dip and Rockpool Bar & Grill in Sydney, Miss Kitty’s in Perth, and Sidecar in Hobart, there’s something to be said for combining the virtues of the mobile hotdog stand with a quality product. Enter Woofys, a moveable fleet of Sydney sausage stands, modelled on the hotdog carts of New York. “I lived in New York for three years working in advertising, and I used to get a hotdog every night on the way home from work,” says Woofys co-founder Tom Gibson. “When I came back here I thought, there’s a market for hotdogs in Australia, so we put an Australian twist on it, called it a sausage sizzle, and now we have Woofys.”
The sausages are made from grass-fed Angus beef, the buns are soft and sweet, made for Woofys by Bronte Bakery, and the toppings (beetroot purée, creamy slaw and deep-fried onion among them) are as fresh as they come. When you get down to it, in fact, the only thing noticeably American about Woofys is the cart. “We have The Boss dog, which is like an American version of a hotdog, with pickles, sauerkraut, mustard and tomato sauce, but everything else is pretty Australiana,” Gibson says.
Currently the Woofys fleet is mainly rolled out to events, but over summer a cart will be stationed upstairs in the restaurant at Bondi’s Beach Road Hotel and two carts will be in Hyde Park for the Sydney Festival over January. Catch Woofys at the Beach Road Hotel, 71 Beach Rd, Bondi, NSW, Wednesdays to Sundays until the end of February.
