The Grates to expand Southside Tea Room venture

Patience Hodgson and John Patterson from Brisbane band the Grates are expanding operations at their Southside Tea Room venue at Morningside.

The duo will be taking over a shop next door and the car park behind the cafe. Plans include a bar called Death Valley (the name of their record label) as well as a beer garden and permanent food truck.

"We'll be keeping Southside as a cafe for breakfast and lunch and to put on events at night, while Death Valley next door will be separate," Patterson said.

The bar will seat about 24 and feature eight taps of mostly local craft beers.

The new bar and beer garden will mean a busy start to 2015 for Patterson and Hodgson, who are expecting a baby in January.

Head chef at Picnic at Camp Hill Rory Doyle will run the permanent food truck, named the Red Robin Supper Truck. Doyle met Hodgson and Patterson when they came to some of the Red Robin Supper Club pop-ups he has been running since 2011. The trio then collaborated on a couple of pop-ups at Southside.

"We started talking with Rory a year ago about the possibility of opening something together, and we said we would all keep an eye out," Patterson said. "Then earlier this year, we took over the whole building and the car park, and as the bar at Southside was always a bit cramped, we thought it was a good opportunity to expand the food side and decided to get a permanent food truck in car park."

Doyle will be winding down his work at Picnic to begin running operations from the 7.5-metre food truck, which also has the ability to hit the road.

So how is he going to cope with moving from a cafe kitchen to a food-truck kitchen?

"There's more space in it than my kitchen now, with more burners and grill space," Doyle said. "We can have three chefs on at any one time."

The plan is for the truck to have a changing menu of five or six dishes rather than just sticking with a particular cuisine.

"I want the freedom to cook what I want, to change things regularly, seasonally and according to what people like and what's good value at the markets, rather than stick to one concept," Doyle said.

The beer garden and food truck are scheduled to open in February. Doyle's final Red Robin Supper Club events will be held at Picnic Cafe on December 2 and 4.