Eating
One room, three different times of day
Breakfast
Six to ten, early because half the building has somewhere to be. Eggs, toast and fruit, and a pot of coffee that gets replaced before you ask.
Dinner
Six to nine, every night. There are six or seven things on a board that goes up at four, and each day it is wiped clean and written again.
The bar
From four until the last person gives up. Cold beer, a short wine list that leans South Australian, and the only television in the building.
A long way from the coast
Alice is fifteen hundred kilometres from the nearest coast and the kitchen cooks accordingly. There are no oysters or prawns on the board and there never will be. What is on it comes up the track from Adelaide twice a week or off a property within a day's drive.
The beef, lamb, bush tomato and wattleseed come from a supplier in town who was at it long before it became fashionable. The vegetables are as good as the week's truck.