By NOEL MURPHY
WHAT did the master in IT say to the sparkie? Do you want fries with that?
Sure, it might sound like a bad joke but for Torquay’s Amit Agrawal it’s in fact a life-changing opportunity reaping dividends he never expected.
Rather than circuits, computer chips and information super-highways, his world’s shape-shifted into petrol bowsers, bain-maries, hamburgers and sangers.
The small Caltex servo he runs on the Surf Coast Hwy at Torquay with wife Sapana is anything but the ubiquitous mega-stations popping up elsewhere.
It only has three bowsers but what it lacks in size it makes up for in heart – and old-style Aussie takeaway tucker that’s increasingly a rarity in these over-driven organic, holistic days.
Lengthy early-morning queues and lunchtime frenzies are par for the course at the servo, fronted by a clutch of optimistic palms and nestled under the gums, pines and cypresses of adjoining Torquay Caravan Park.
“It wasn’t what we expected,” Amit laughed while explaining how he came to Australia six years to study for a masters in IT. Sapana was studying cookery.
“There just weren’t enough opportunities in Melbourne in IT. A friend’s friend offered me the Caltex station and two years ago we moved to Torquay.”
And the servo’s been going gangbusters since with its sub-continental take on true-blue Aussie grub: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken-burgers, salads, sandwiches, wraps, fruit salads and fast-food regulars from spring rolls to dimmies and satay sticks.
Sapana said college taught her well, even if she was a little over-qualified.
“Life is totally different here after living in Melbourne for five years,” she said.
“We start at six in the morning with coffees and toasties, it’s very busy. Then at lunchtime it’s very busy again.
“People tell us all the time, ‘You’re making awesome food for Torquay’. We get comments every day.”
