Our story
The long way round.
A market table, a name that stopped fitting, a café we sold, and back to events — which is where it was always most fun.
7 News, at Party in the Paddock Festival.
Meet the founder
Sam Rokebrand
“It was one table and a crate of avocados. Everything since has happened pretty slowly.”
It began as Sammy’s Smashed Avo: a folding table at a Melbourne market, smashed avo on rustic sourdough, made to order for whoever walked past. It sold out on the first day, which was more luck than judgement, so he came back the next weekend and started paying attention to what people actually asked for.
What they asked for was something they could carry. A market crowd wants to keep walking, and a wrap is about the only thing that holds avocado, egg, greens and sauce together in one hand. The wraps took over, the name stopped fitting, and The Avo Shack is what it became.
Weekends turned into festival bookings, which is a completely different job — a festival doesn’t want a stall, it wants a vendor who can hold a queue of two hundred from breakfast to midnight and still be pleasant about it. Learning that took a few seasons and a lot of long nights.
It went well enough that we opened a café in Byron Bay. We ran it, we learned a great deal, and after a while we sold it.
We went back to events because events are more fun. You get the weather, the crowd, the rush at four o’clock and a completely different site every weekend, and at the end of it you pack up and go home. That suits us better than a lease did.
These days the shack travels — Melbourne markets, festivals across Victoria, and interstate for the ones worth packing the truck for. Same crew, same standard, whichever site you get. That is the first thing we’d lose if we grew the wrong way, so we don’t.
Where it began
One table, three things on the board.
This is the whole business in its first season — a hand-painted banner, a menu you could read from six feet away, and smashed avo on sourdough made to order.
Nothing about it was planned. Sam booked a Melbourne market stall to see whether anyone would buy it, sold out by lunchtime, and came back the next weekend because that seemed like the obvious thing to do. Everything on this page grew out of that table.
The banner is long gone and the board is a lot longer now, but the part that mattered hasn’t changed: make it in front of the person eating it, and don’t hand over anything you wouldn’t want handed to you.
How it grew
How it grew.
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Sammy’s Smashed Avo
A folding table at a Melbourne market, a toaster, and smashed avo on sourdough. Sold out on day one, came back the next weekend.
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The wraps, and a new name
Built for a crowd that wants to keep walking. The B.L.A.T went on the board and never came off it, and the shack got its name.
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The first festivals
A different job entirely — long days, big queues, no shortcuts. This is where the crew and the run sheet came from.
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The Byron Bay café
We opened one, ran it, learned a lot, and sold it. A good business, and somebody else is doing a good job of it now.
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Back to events
Several shacks, several sites, one standard — and private catering, because people who ate at a festival started asking us to do their wedding.
The crew
The crew.
Small, trained, and genuinely good at the part most caterers treat as an afterthought: the ninety seconds a guest spends at the counter. Everyone who works a shack has done their food-handling certification, and everyone on the line can cook every item on the board.
The line
Two to six cooks depending on your numbers, plus a dedicated runner once we’re past a few hundred covers.
The counter
Fast, friendly, and able to answer a dietary question properly without going to find someone else.
The late shift
Our busiest hour is usually the one everyone else has packed up for. We roster for it rather than hoping.
The obsession
We taste every delivery. An underripe avocado is not a small problem when it is the name above the door.
How we work
How we work.
Four things you can expect on any booking, whether it’s forty people in a backyard or four thousand through a gate.
One quote, all in
Staff, travel, equipment and packaging are in the number we send you. If something would push it up, you hear about it before we do it — not on the invoice.
We cook to order
Nothing is made weeks ahead and thawed. Prep starts the day before, cooking starts the morning of, and it is cooked in front of the people eating it.
We size to your numbers
The crew is scaled to the peak hour you’re expecting, not to what would be convenient for us. Under-staffing a service to win a quote is how caterers get a bad name.
We leave it clean
Pack down is part of the job, not an extra line. Waste, grey water and oil go with us, and the ground goes back the way we found it.
Where we go
Where we travel.
Melbourne is home and most of our season is Victoria — the city, the Peninsula, the regional festivals. We go interstate for the ones worth packing the truck for.
We’ve traded in festival paddocks, exhibition halls, backyards, warehouses, wineries and station country. If your site has restrictions on access, power, water or noise, send them through early: it changes what we’d suggest running, and it is much cheaper to know at quote than at bump-in.