Chermside. An ed-med hub, being home to two major hospitals, with the Healthcare industry as well as social assistance providers being the largest employers within the area. Queensland University of Technology has its medical engineering campus here. There are also several Aged Care facilities, and three-in-twenty locals have a career or earn their living within the realms of education and medicine.
It’s a name kinda sounds like a pharmacy chain so that’s lucky – and a long, long way from Downfall Creek.
During the 1867 Gympie gold rush, hopefuls heading north would often run into the trouble Cobb & Co did trying to traverse that creek. The waterway became known as Downfall Creek; eventually overriding its Dead Man’s Gully moniker. (There always have to be one of those.)
A few decades later, teacher James Youatt didn’t like the idea of ‘Downfall Creek School’, lobbied for change, and in 1903 it was named in honour of Sir Herbert Chermside, Governor of Queensland.
Too bad it wasn’t named ‘Youatt’ because it sounds like good ol’ Aussie town name that were someone to ask where it is, there’d be an Abbott & Costello who’s-on-first happening.
In Chermside in 1957 you may have asked where the Allan & Stark Drive-in shopping centre is – the first in Queensland in a time when parking your car only once to shop, was a big deal.
Now food is.
To check out Chermside’s vibrant cafe scene is to begin with Motto Motto Japanese Kitchen.
Basically son of Sono, the most awarded Japanese restaurant in Australia, Motto Motto is the very best of traditional Japanese cuisine uniquely reimagined for casual, contemporary dining. Catering for vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free palates means everyone is catered for; and no Pork Belly Kakuni, or seared scallop Kaisen left behind.
Motto Motto is the new fast-casual dining; the Japanese kitchen reimagined. If you can’t imagine this reimagining, think “Japanese burgers”… and then think rich, creamy black sesame soft serve…
Not only does it deliver an outstanding food experience, it delivers!
Imagining Japan, and a burger is much like envisaging Bavaria and an Aussie pub.
Formerly a part of Rockpool Dining Group, German-inspired, Aussie-oyed Bavarian Chermside is built on key attributes: unbeatably satisfying food, sensational beers and a family-friendly experience. Affordable classic dishes: warm, fresh-baked pretzels; roast pork belly; pork knuckle, and schnitzels. Fill your senses and your stein from a choice of seven German beers on tap.
OTT Burgers, eight wing styles, sausages long and hot and four types of schnitzel set the arena for a beer-fest with friends, or a family table with tasting paddles.
If Tex-Mex is more your thing, within this quiet, leafy green suburb of Chermside is the very welcoming El Camino Cantina. The music is loud, the frozen margaritas multiple, and the kitchen is busy.
And why not? Unlimited complimentary salsa and chips, a selection of soft-shelled tacos, sizzling fajitas, burritos, buffalo wings, nachos and all the classics. Freshly hand-made tortillas, guacamole made to order, burritos stuffed to bursting.
A value-packed, flavoursome menu, party vibe, music, music, music and margaritas with a cult following for its fresh lime juice mix of tequila, Triple Sec and secrecy.
If you’ve had too many desserts a Chermside dentist can help; if you’ve involved yourself in too many frozen margaritas a good lie down and a stern talking to is about the best you’ll do.
And you can only blame $2 Taco Tuesdays, 10-cent Wing Wednesdays, and half-price Fajita Thursdays for so long. Get yourself out into the Chermside Hills Reserves and do some koala spotting. You have 130 hectares to explore, a liver to save and life to expand.
