Images supplied by Orange Basket
A new café dedicated to loaded baked potatoes and sweet potatoes is coming to Christies Beach, with a bigger purpose behind every sale.
Orange Basket Cafe will officially open on Beach Road on Monday, September 28, bringing its new “Home of the Aussie Spud” concept to the seaside suburb.
Expect all-day breakfasts, coffee and cakes, with the new Loaded Classics menu set to be the main drawcard. Customers can choose from baked potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice or hot dogs, before piling them high with their choice of toppings.
Think slow-cooked meats, chicken curry, tuna mornay, beans, cheese, sour cream, coleslaw, pub-style gravy and plenty of combinations to mix and match.
One of the standout options is Mary’s Not So Little Lamb Classic, loaded with slow-cooked pulled lamb, rosemary, rich jus and pub-style gravy.
There’s also slow-cooked beef with gravy and peas, chilli con carne with mild chilli beans, bolognese, cheese and sour cream, plus the nostalgic favourite of tuna mornay.
Although the food has got our taste buds singing, Orange Basket is anything but your average café.
The venue is operated by Orange Basket Community Services, a registered South Australian charity and Australian Disability Enterprise (ADE) that provides paid employment opportunities for people living with disability.
The team specifically chose Beach Road because they wanted participants working in a genuine, public-facing hospitality environment.
“We wanted a location for our participants that feels connected to the community,” Orange Basket managing director Dale Ross said.
“We want our employees living with disabilities to work in a genuine hospitality environment, serving real customers and being part of everyday community life at Christies Beach.”
The Loaded Classics concept has been designed with that purpose in mind, too. The build-your-own format gives employees opportunities to get hands-on with food preparation, portioning, presentation and customer service, while working directly with customers.
For some employees, Orange Basket can become a long-term workplace, while for others it can provide experience and skills that help them move into open employment elsewhere.
Within the first couple of months, Orange Basket hopes to introduce its potato and sweet potato waffles, with both sweet and savoury combinations planned.
There’ll be local brie with fruit compote, an egg and bacon potato waffle with maple syrup, and even a potato waffle burger loaded with a meat patty, tomato, onion, beetroot, lettuce and cheese.
Eventually, the Christies Beach venue also hopes to expand into dinner service and weekends but for now they’ll be open Monday to Thursday from 8.15am to 2.30pm, with Friday trading until 5pm.
And while the employment mission is at the heart of Orange Basket, Dale said the café still needs to be somewhere people genuinely want to visit.
“First and foremost, we want to bring a cafe that people genuinely want to visit. The food and coffee must stand on their own,” he said.
“If Orange Basket can bring great food, great coffee and more paid employment opportunities to Christies Beach, then we’ll have done something worthwhile.”
Orange Basket Christies Beach
When: opened Monday, 28 September
Where: 2/60 Beach Road, Christies Beach
For more, click here.
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