VIC Melbourne (west-side) meetup - Thurs 25th August 7pm - Plough Hotel, Footscray VIC.

There is another one in the East on the second Tuesday of every month (next week). Details will be in this forum shortly, there's also a mailing list:
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Thanks Peter. Can this be proximate to Hawthorn, to ease the logistics of commuting from the West?

 

Any chance @Peter_Tersteeg ?

 

@peastman is actually the guy doing the organising. I'm just his sidekick.

Anyone is welcome to help organise. If you know a venue that would be good, suggest it.

 

The big pain point is having enough venues that can seat approx 14 people at the one table, have a varied (vego + meateater) and affordable menu (some people are happy to spend $30 on dinner, some prefer circa $15), room accoustics enable that enable us to hear conversation, and ideally be near to a train station, or failing that, a tram line. As @Peter_Tersteeg mentioned, suggestions welcome ! Sometimes we trial a new place and it works, sometimes it doesn't work.

 

@peastman , @JacM , @Peter_Tersteeg

For the West: Dining - WestWaters

For the mid ground: Home - Glenferrie Hotel Looks good and not too far from the train stop.

Anyway, just some ideas.

Is a weekend lunch a possibility, to avoid night travel and inconvenience (particularly with 4 year old twins ...)

 

I'm trying quite hard to offer venues that are within a reasonable walking distance of train stations. West Waters is 5.4km from the nearest station. That's a heck of a lot of walking which means realistically only drivers would attend, which means CBD workers won't attend, as they won't want to train it home to get the car and then head out again. We are aiming to create meetups that attract a fair few members such that as many people as possible have a chance to make new friends and network.

As @The Y-man has mentioned, price-point of food is important. Investors are buying property because they aren't splurging on expensive meals.

The criteria I'm trying very hard to stick to is noted below.

• Within walking distance of a train station (less than 1km) and offering free parking
• Offering more than one option for vegetarians to choose from on the menu
• Offering meal choices from approx $15 and up. Those that fancy a $30 steak will happily indulge, but many folks often want to stick to something cheap and cheerful such as a pizza.
• Acoustics that enable conversation (I got that one horribly wrong at the last venue ... sorry folks)
• Some venues to be near a major train station (eg Footscray, Sunshine) that services the western regional train lines of Geelong and Ballarat, so that our regional friends can join us at some of the meetups with minimal fuss.

It has taken loads of hours to find places that will comply. Some venues have complied on all points except sufficient vegetarian options. It is doing my head in that when I call the venues to enquire if there is a possibility of a second vego option on the menu, they don't appear to be interested. Oh well.

Anyway, I now have a few venues in mind for us to try out in the West and North West. Some we'll like, some we won't. No worries, if we don't like a place, we won't return. The places we do like will become part of the standard rota.

 

For those that do need to catch a train, if it's not particularly close to a station I'm more than happy to pick someone up or even take someone with me if they live out east - as long as they're happy to hear me yap on

On another note. What about the Auburn Hotel? Near a train, easy enough to get to, has parking and has cheap steak nights on Tuesdays..

Welcome to The Auburn Hotel, Hawthorn

 

Thanks @Lil Skater .... this site would be potentially relevant to the east-side catchups. I'll leave it to @The Y-man @peastman and @Peter_Tersteeg to evaluate.

 

Hi Sam,
We had the same thought.
I was planning this for October.

 

Another important point - ensure the venue supports splitting bills.

The last venue was atrocious, telling us they don't split bills for one half of the tables. Guess which half we were at.

A little negotiation by a master buyers advocate got the manager to agree to split the bill. A good night was had, even though it was a lot noisier than many of our previous venues.

But at the end of the night, the venue changed their mind about allowing us to split the bill and were repeatedly persistent we use their overpriced cash machine, which a cynical person may suggest the venue receives kickbacks from.

Amazingly, after arguing for no less than 10 minutes if they wanted our money or not, it only took the cashier moments per person to ring up the total.

While the food wasn't mediocre, it wasn't remarkable either. Besides the noise, the venue was laid out well and attractive, but the management and staff attitude guaranteed at least a dozen people will never return.

 

Yep, the behaviour of the staff was astounding. Turns out they could have individuals pay for certain chunks of the bill (aka splitting the bill) but just didn't want us all standing at the registers at once. Which normally doesn't happen as people leave incrementally, but the behaviour of our waitress caused as to all be keen to leave at the same time. I put my review on Zomato and the manager rang me the next day. He was a bit shocked to hear of his staff's behaviour.