By Taylah Eastwell
A Belgrave Indian restaurant has taken large pots of Indian cuisine to the streets of the Hills each week, vowing to feed the mountain community until the power was restored.
Babaji’s Kitchen took 500 serves of butter chicken and potato curry to Kalorama each Tuesday following the storm as a way of thanking the broader mountain community for their support in keeping the business alive during multiple Covid-19 lockdowns.
Owners Billy Crombie and partner Max had “so much community support during Covid” that they wanted to help out the Hills community in its time of need.
“Cooking large amounts of yummy food is what we do. Give us a chainsaw and we’ve got no idea, but we can cook. We really just wanted to give the community something to look forward to and give them warmth, not just in the food but in the gesture,” Billy said.
“The storm happened and we sat on it for about a week. The first week of it was just numb. We were trying to come out of lockdown and keep the business surviving because we didn’t get JobKeeper because our staff were indian (non-residents) and there is only so much a small business can cope with with these lockdowns. It was really important to us that we did help because this is our community, these are our people,” she said.
Billy contacted St Michaels Church, Kalorama and asked if they could come up with their street food set-up.
Coming out of lockdowns, the offer to feed 500 people for free was no easy feat.
“We were pretty nervous about the financial implications of it, because we said we would cook every week until the power is restored. So we put it out on social media and everyone started donating to us. Those three weeks we have been up to Kalorama have been paid for by the community donating,” Billy said.
Even after Ausnet restored power much earlier than the original 10 July timeframe, Babaji’s Kitchen still took pots of food up to Kalorama to warm bellies.
“We want people to know it’s OK to come. It’s been paid for by the community. Even with the power back on, it has been such an emotional, stressful time for people and we acknowledge that. We told everyone it’s OK to come and let us feed them,” she said.
And while butter chicken isn’t authentic south indian, it was chosen as a treat for the kids.
“It’s mild and the kids love it, so we did it for the kids,” Billy said.
During lockdowns, Babaji’s Kitchen visited different towns in the hills and foothills of Mt Dandenong for “extreme delivery”.
“We were sharing our story every week about what a lockdown looked like for a small Indian restaurant. I was telling people how much wages were, how much rent was, because I wanted people to understand not all businesses are receiving the government support that was being promoted. I broke down how many people we served and was up front with what was happening and people responded by buying more takeaway,” Billy said.
“So we started our extreme delivery service far beyond Belgrave. We started with Mt Evelyn, I was thinking it’s too far but there were quite a few people in Mt Evelyn asking, so we said if you order on a certain night by 5pm we will get that food to a destination outside the Commonwealth Bank by 6pm. It meant we weren’t driving all over and it was literally about fifty percent of our turnover. Mt Evelyn were the ones that made us think differently and then we continued one night per week in Monbulk, Boronia, Emerald,” Billy said.
Babaji’s still continues its extreme delivery in Olinda on Wednesdays, Monbulk on Fridays and Emerald on Sundays.
“It’s shown us that you can do things differently and people don’t have to drive all the way down the mountain to Belgrave,” Billy said.
“Without the community’s support I can’t even imagine how we would have got through,” she said.
