THE Tramway Cafe, which recently opened at the Westside Plaza Shopping Centre, was named as a tribute to Broken Hill’s rail history.
Owner, Charlie Ray said the tramway used to run close by to where the cafe is now, from 1888 before it was decommissioned in 1970.
Mr Ray said he believes the cafe had at one point formerly been called the Tramway Lounge, and that he thought it was important to reinstate this history.
“I’ve always thought when they changed that we sort of lost of history,” he said. “I wanted to go back to that, hence the name The Tramway Cafe.”
Mr Ray said his incentive in taking over the cafe was more of a ‘why not’ than a lifelong goal.
“My two sons needed jobs, I needed a job,” he said. “We sort of looked around and this is where we ended up.”
Before opening the cafe Mr Ray had worked in a myriad of roles, but spent many years as a cook.
He said he decided to keep the menu quite generic with simple staples like a steak sandwich, which has been a crowd favourite, and fish and chips.
A small piece of the history of the railways is acknowledged in the menu item called the train driver breakfast, according to Mr Ray.
“Years ago a friend of mine, his father used to work on the railway,” he said.
“And he told me they would clean the coal shovels off and wash them, and then they’d throw bacon and sausage and eggs and tomatoes and things like that onto the shovel and cooked it for breakfast.”
To celebrate the recent opening of the cafe, the Westside Plaza is offering 60 free coffees today (Friday, June 13) at the Tramway, which is located at the entrance of the Plaza closest to Woolworths.
