Box Diner Cafe Restaurant Review

Simple cafe food. Fresh produce. Quality regional ingredients. It can’t get much better than that when grabbing breakfast or lunch. Box Diner, a Canberra café on Tennant Street in Fyshwick, believes that low miles from ‘farm to plate’ attract many café customers who want tasty food made onsite daily.

Box Diner uses fresh herbs, local eggs from happy, free-range chooks, beef from Hereford cattle who thrive on tasty grass, and artisan breads from a nearby bakery made with little or no preservatives. The Canberra café’s jams, marmalades and relishes come from Boorowa’s Walsh Country Kitchen and are made with love from regional fruits and vegetables.

This Fyshwick cafe is open crack of dawn with Canberra business people, tradespeople and staff from local businesses arriving for a barista-quality coffee, or a cup of Adora tea (don’t forget to grab a loyalty card).

To kick-start your day, Box Diner’s menu offers small options, such as spiced Turkish raisin toast with espresso creamed butter, up to the Big Box Breakfast, sure to satisfy the hungriest of workers. All dishes are made in-house.

Those who prefer savoury options can’t go wrong with a toasted croissant, with tomato and cheese or ham and cheese, or the bacon and egg roll with tangy BBQ sauce. Those with a sweet tooth adore the crepes - a traditional lemon and sugar, as well as apple and cinnamon or hazelnut and chocolate. Vegetarians regularly opt for the Herbivore - open range eggs, avocado, fried haloumi, roast tomato, mushrooms and spinach. Meat lovers dive into the Carnivore with Smokey bacon and spicy chorizo. And the café’s Big Box Breakfast, as its name implies, promises ‘the lot’.

While some daytime Canberra cafes stop serving food mid-morning to prep for lunch or mid-afternoon to close down, Box Diner has delicious ‘all day’ options. Try the rice paper rolls (Thai omelette or chicken) - an instant success when the diner first opened - or the Moorish pot pies. Paninis, house-baked focaccia and toasted baguettes (3” and 9”) can be ordered all day at the cafe and Box Diner’s home-baked sweets are fabulous.

As the clock ticks towards noon, this Fyshwick cafe rolls out its lunch menu, with rotating blackboard weekly and daily specials adding interest for customers who return often. On the regular menu is salt and pepper squid with light chilli citrus salad, garlic prawns with jasmine rice and good old tempura fish and chips. The salad range features the champagne poached pear with blue cheese and walnuts, a honey mustard chicken, and a roast vegetable.

Feeling like a bit of pasta? Box Diner has five styles, including the sensational fettucini gambrei. Eleven types of burgers are on the menu, including the tangy peri peri, a flame grill lamb with blue cheese and the hearty Portobello mushroom.

Located in Fyshwick, an industrial, retail and office area, this Canberra cafe has a perfect location, only minutes away from the Parliamentary Triangle, trendy Kingston and Manuka, and other parts of the city. Box Diner is a peaceful place to dine, overlooking hectares of farm land. There’s plenty of free on-street parking and easy access for people with disability.

The atmosphere at the Fyshwick cafe is relaxed and non-pretentious. Dine indoors in stylish surrounds with warm timber accents and in comfy booth or table seating, or alfresco under weatherproof awnings with gas heaters to keep you warm in Canberra’s cooler months. The café also offers corporate catering and party catering.

Box Diner is open Monday to Friday, 7am to 3pm. 65 Tennant Street, Fyshwick, ACT. (02) 6202 5555. Dine in or take-away. Take-home dishes available. BYO.

Six Tips for Saving Money When Dining Out

Dining out can be expensive when it’s a regular habit. Sometimes we have no choice but to go out for breakfast or lunch. It might be to celebrate a friend’s birthday, farewell a colleague or meet with a supplier or client.

So what to do if your budget is tight but you still have to dine out? Here are six tips for doing so without burning a big hole in your pocket, compliments of Box Diner, a Canberra café in the heart of Fyshwick, an industrial, retail and office area in the ACT.

First, be the one to suggest where to dine. Selecting a place like Box Diner will help because the menu is designed around various price points. While this Fyshwick cafe dishes up a Big Box Breakfast for $22.50, which has ‘the lot’, it also offers tasty options to start your day for as low as $6, such as spiced Turkish raisin toast with espresso creamed butter.

Second, plan ahead. A bit of planning can help you save. Bring something light from home to munch on before heading out to a café, like crackers and cheese or fruit. Then you can more reasonably priced item from the café’s menu. Box Diner, for example, has a 9” baguette for only $9 and a champagne poached pear salad with blue cheese, walnuts and baby spinach for $12.

Third, select a café that offers daily specials. Box Diner has $10 cheese burgers on Tuesdays, $10 pasta on Wednesdays, and $10 bacon and eggs at breakfast on Thursdays. And the Fyshwick café has 2 for 1 coffee Monday mornings.

Fourth, select a café that offers BYO, but be careful since some corkage charges are expensive and almost defeat the purpose. Box Diner’s BYO charge is only $2.50 per person.

Fifth, check out loyalty programs. With Box Diner’s coffee loyalty cards you will earn yourself a free hot drink. Buy seven and get one free. And this Canberra café also has a loyalty card for ‘food to go’.

Sixth, opt for something small. Box Diner offers small slices and pastries which means you can enjoy a sweet without spending a fortune - starting at $2.50 for something small but tasty.

In this day and age, eating out is hugely popular and at times we end up having to go to a café when we’d prefer not to for budget reasons. The good news is that applying these tips will help ease the pain and ensure you still have a great time while eating at a café

Box Diner, Canberra café in Fyshwick, ACT. Open Monday to Friday, 7am to 3pm. 65 Tennant Street, Fyshwick, ACT. (02) 6202 5555. Dine in or take-away. Take-home dishes available. Corporate catering and party catering available. BYO.