We’ve known for some time that Sizzler is dying. But on Thursday came reports that its parent company would be shutting some of its remaining restaurants. If Sizzler had been in a coma, it’s now contracted pneumonia.
Let’s just say the phone rings. The voice at the other end says: “Your father doesn’t have long. If you can get on a plane, this might be your last chance to see him”. Australia, this is that phone call. Your father is Sizzler. Get on that plane.
From its heyday in the 1990s, Sizzler has just 25 stores left across Australia, mostly in regional towns in Queensland, where there are 18 stores.
The last time I went to Sizzler was out of nostalgia, not hunger. Some friends and I wanted to recapture something of our childhoods, so took a trip to one of the only three remaining Sizzler restaurants in Sydney. In the new millenium, Sizzler restaurants had become outcasts, scattered out far away from Sydney’s CBD.
For kids of the 90s, there are certain Sydney landmarks which held special meaning. For me, they were Sizzler, Wonderland, Old Sydney Town and, to a lesser extent, Sega World. Of those four, only Sizzler remained open, so it become the destination for our bittersweet journey. The nearest Sizzler to us was in Carramar, a suburb 30km from the city, which will now always be associated with my own endless salad bar version of the Last Supper.
The door to the restaurant declared: “We request our guests maintain a neat, casual standard of dress. (Footwear MUST be worn)”.
The words “all-you-can-eat” and “dress code” don’t always go hand in hand, but Sizzler was the exception.
We surveyed the menu but, in truth, we were only there for the complimentary cheese toast. I don’t care to know what caused Sizzler’s demise but I think you have to wonder about the financial viability of a business whose flagship meal item – cheese toast – was free.
You really can’t overstate the brilliance of Sizzler’s cheese toast. If Sizzler’s owners had any sense, they’d rebrand as a chain of restaurants called Just Cheese Toast. Sizzler’s version – crunchy on the top but soft on the bottom – is like butter chicken at an Indian restaurant: it’s really all we were there for.
But don’t try to tempt me with the salad bar. Although it was described in advertising as “endless”, for me it was beginningless. Urban legends about bacteria and the sight of some customers choosing to ditch tongs in lieu of their own fingers made it a no-go zone.
We left Carramar, pregnant with food and looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Junior. Had we eaten well? God, no. Had we eaten all we could? You’d better believe it.
