Lunchtime lads corner the market at Good Ways Deli review

Crafting a good food experience fills the minds of Tom Pye and Jordan McKenzie, owners and founders of Good Ways Deli. 

Nothing in their two corner sandwich shops, a year-old one in Redfern, and now a week-old sibling in Alexandria, escapes their considered and ethical approach to filled bread, baked goods, hot and cold drinks and high-end customer service.

They are also quite tired, three days after their Alexandria opening, but no less enthusiastic.

"It's relentless," McKenzie says. "But we love it."

Ask either about Good Way's six daily sandwiches and McKenzie and Pye, working in-store every day, enthusiastically explain the dish's dedicated fine-tuning. 

McKenzie extols the chewy crust of the cheese toastie, made with darkish house-baked malt sourdough bread, and beautifully oozy. Whole loaves of the slowly fermented sourdough are available each day from 8am.

The classic salad roll, bursting with pickled beetroot, carrot, mushroom pate, sprouts, Tilsit cheese, mayo and rocket, is built so it won't collapse on your lap, shed layers of ingredients or even curl up and wither if refrigerated halfway for later.

Good Ways Deli in Alexandria is smaller than the Redfern shop but its corner location and building style are strikingly similar. Huge trees line the semi-quiet suburban street, there are wide footpaths out front and light pours in two large windows in the two-storey brick building.

"I cycled past here one day and there was an A4 piece of paper on the window saying for lease," Pye says. "We weren't necessarily looking for a second shop but, corner block, quiet street, it's kinda nice."

It's also elegantly fitted out with two curving Victorian Ash wood counters, each fronted with fluted columns of timber.

Softly edged wood shelving bears bags of Coffee Supreme beans, Olssons salt, house made hot sauce, paper filters. A limited run of Good Ways T-shirts, made in collaboration with Marrickville label Pseushi, are there too along with mugs, tote bags, keep cups and hot bread bags. The fridge has Pepe Saya butter, Sungold Jersey milk and Highland Fresh free-range eggs.

Opening day, which featured a series of hidden free sandwich "golden tickets" sticky taped around Alexandria, also introduced new Buckland Street-only products.

One is a Milo iced mocha, bottled by Pye at night and snapped up by afternoon each day. Made with oat milk, espresso and panella, an unrefined whole cane sugar, it is malty, sweet and silkily strong. There's also a strawberry creaming spider, a milo thickshake and house still and sparkling water.

Good Ways Deli fans will rejoice in familiar offerings including the chicken sandwich, made with poached chicken, mayo and fresh tarragon and rocket, and the deli sandwich's kangaroo, mortadella, salami cotto and ham fillings.

Hot favourite, the simple-sounding ham sandwich, is a well-tuned orchestration of Maffra cloth-aged cheddar, onion jam, sprouts, hot mustard, pickles and mayo.

The beauteous glistening vanilla slice, topped with passionfruit icing, is available on the weekend but kicky Vegemite scrolls, fat lamingtons filled with rhubarb jam, macadamia brownies and burnt butter chocolate chip cookies rest, briefly, on the wooden display shelves daily.

There is also a fermented potato chilli focaccia, a spinach and ricotta roll and a curried kangaroo sausage roll. 

Meats are still supplied by Whole Beast Butchery in Marrickville and Pye and McKenzie continue to use organic flours, native ingredients and environmentally focussed products and practices. The wide, dark golden ANZAC biscuits use any surplus of sourdough bread instead of flour.

Plans are underway for footpath seating but, for now, strolling locals, nearby workers and people fresh from soccer training in Alexandria Park across the road sit on a wooden bench inside or stand under the shade of fig trees waiting for orders. Coffee drinkers can also choose to drink their brews in a ceramic cup. 

Everything is presented with incredible cheer and chat by Pye and McKenzie who believe in fostering good relations behind, and in front of, the counter.

"Valuing everybody, whether they are employees or customers, is important," McKenzie says. "It creates a good culture which is important in hospitality. We definitely love it. And that's why we do it."

The low-down

Good Ways Deli

Vibe Corner sandwich mini-emporium with carefully crafted filled bread and baked goods and excellent customer service.

Go-to dish Salad sandwich with a Milo iced mocha