Great Aussie Takeaway Festival

ANGLESEA locals have banded together to flip the script on Victoria’s fourth lockdown by launching a food festival with a difference.

The Great Aussie Takeaway Festival is designed to celebrate local businesses offering takeaway options for residents during the state’s most recent COVID lockdown.

Chatterbox Marketing Director Matt Jones said the festival idea was created in a day as a quick response to lockdowns.

“It’s flipping the script, rather than being in lockdown and thinking ‘we can only get takeaway,’ it’s about celebrating takeaway,” Mr Jones said.

“The community has really got involved as it’s such a positive thing, we are wanting residents to support locals and buy local over the next 7 days.”

Not all heroes wear capes, but according to Mr Jones they might order a pizza with capers, because this lockdown doing your bit to rescue a local business in their hour of need is as easy as ordering in.

“You literally just go down to the business, grab your takeaway and take it home.”

“I went down and got a burger last night,” Mr Jones added.

The Anglesea Hotel and Poppies Café are run by the Klein family. Talia Klein said that the online response to the initiative had been wonderful.

“We posted on the Facebook ‘Anglesea Life’ page that we were doing takeaway and it was really well received…it’s a really nice community to be a part of,” she said.

Olivia Klein said they were well practiced in snap lockdowns from the previous three.

“We did it the first three times, so we were mega organised, we still had our containers and everything.”

“Everything you can normally get on the menu you can still get, our motto is to get it out nice and fast so it is delivered hot, and can be enjoyed at home with the family.”

The Kleins are offering free delivery from their café and restaurant but encourage people to support all the local cafes and restaurants.

“We have three girls here that jump in the car as soon as it is ready, the kitchen bell rings and off it goes,” she said.

They are trying to spread the hours out evenly between their staff.

“Everyone has bills…for mental health and wellbeing it works too because it means they know they are not going to be stuck at home and can come to work for a few hours.”

There is no gathering or set location for The Great Aussie Takeaway Festival, it’s about supporting existing businesses that are still open for takeaway.

“The festival is really just a fun COVID-safe way to encourage the locals to support local, shop local and enjoy the great variety of Takeaway options available from over 20 Anglesea businesses that are still operating during the current 7-day lockdown,” Mr Jones said.

“It was quickly created as an extension of the Anglesea Shop Local campaign that has been running since December 2020 that Chatterbox Marketing has been managing with support from all the local businesses.”