Consider The Sauce has celebrated in recent weeks the arrival of nifty food option at its place of regular employment, the Star Weekly newspaper office in Keilor Park.

But now things have gone from edging towards sublime to outright sublimely ridiculous.

The new arrivals, providing tasty options to those who live and work in the area, include The D’s Souvlaki and Theo’s Greek Cakes.

But where those two food outlets are walking distance from my office, 5 NY Bite And Brew will be right across the road, under a minute’s walk and on the corner of Keilor Park Drive and Thompson Road in the new industrial estate there.

Now on any ordinary day, if you said to me that a New York-themed bar heavy on dude food was simply not my thing, you’d be dead right.

But being shown around by the instigator of this enterprise, Steve Raftellis, I am won over by his drive and enthusiasm.

Steve is bringing his experience with similar outfits to bear with spectacular vision.

It’s fair to say that these fit-out photos will bear hardly any resemblance to the finished venue when it is opened some time in August, so ambitious are his plans for deocr and artwork.

Steve reckon he’s on to a good thing – and that includes the location.

He wants to serve the greater west and even right up to Sunbury and Ballarat, access is easy and parking will be a breeze.

It’s a gamble surely, as all new businesses are, but Steve already has about 20 function bookings for December.

As he says, there’s a lot of sports clubs and other organisations around here.

It will be open 11am-midnight, seven days a week – with longer weekend hours on the agenda.

 

 

The ground floor of 5 NY Bite And Brew will feature a dining area with regular seating, a long bar backing on to the kitchen, booths …

 

 

… and a “VIP area”.

 

 

The stairs leading to the rooftop alfresco area will be done out in New York subway style.

 

 

And up on the roof, there will be more booths, a “rain forest” of plants and a bar constructed out of a shipping container.

There will be live music up here – and Steve assures me it will not be of the lame cover version variety.

Drinks and food?

I’m told there will be 100 US craft beers, 49 by American-style cocktails and 10 mega shakes.

CTS has been shown a provisional menu.

Here’s just some of the items included:

Pork belly “thingies”
Empanadas
Lobster mac n cheese
Buffalo wings
Loaded fries including curds and gravy
Coney Island and chilli dogs
Half a dozen burgers
Crispy chicken with velvet waffles and maple syrup
Beef and baby back ribs
Lobster roll

Bennie’s eyes lit up when saw that lot!

Steve tells me almost items will be priced from $5 to $25.