I don’t have a picture of the salmon. I’ve never really got into taking pictures of my food, I prefer to eat it.
I did take a quick photo of the chips.
I didn’t as the website invites “Stay awhile”.
Rather I ate and left.
But I did enjoy my meal there, and will very likely return.
The views of the Yarra are unparalleled in Melbourne.
No where is that close to the Yarra River. No where in Melbourne is that close to the Yarra with a quiet stretch of pedestrian walk beside it either. A lot of the Southbank restaurants tout their closeness to the Yarra, but given the walkway beside it and the boats that moor beside it’s more like knowing the river is there than seeing it. Similarly east of Arbory on the other side of Princes Bridge there are few cafés at river level below Federation Square, but they are also perched on the side with an alfresco area and an indoor area rather than being one continuous space.
Arbory’s space is one continuous space, you can walk along the length, but you’re not going to be interrupted by passers by or pedestrians and the like.
Tonight I could look down at the river and had I been inclined probably could have thrown the ice from my drink into the river.
Which incidentally where some of the squarest ice cubes I’ve ever seen in a bar.
I will be returning to the Arbory because it was reasonably priced, was lovely for a solo diner and has amazing views of the Yarra. I’m also curious what it will be like there in the dead of winter.
Although, I never felt cold while I was dining while facing the river. The canopy gas heater (one of several) which was behind me kept my back warm throughout.
Because I was curious about Arbory I have done a little reading of a few articles about the building of Arbory, its launch and other behind the scenes things like that. Several articles about Arbory assert that the toilets, kitchen and bar are shipping containers.
Which is probably an ‘on trend’ thing to think.
But very probably wrong.
Firstly, think on Arbory’s location.
While I didn’t out a tape measure while I was there I did take a few geotagged photos so I can work out some distances based on it.
Where I sat is about 70 metres into Arbory and the first bar was within probably another 5 metres or so.
Why is this relevant?
Because there doesn’t appear to be any easy road access to Arbory and shipping containerswhen they’re taken to a site either as storage (usually secondhand) construction (secondhand or new) or specialist fit out (what Arbory might have had, but I don’t think it has) they’re dropped off the back of a tilt tray truck or a truck with a crane attached (also known as a Hiab Truck).
There isn’t any road access to that part of the Yarra / Flinders Street station by a truck large enough to carry a shipping container.
There is road access beside Princes Walk on the other side of Princes Bridge, but it is closer to Federation Square rather than at river level.
I think it would be
possible
to get a shipping container to that area of the river, but it’d need to be on a barge, floated up the river. But this would present additional issues. Mostly due to the height of the bridges along the Yarra which are not very high in places. But it could be floated from the rowing club or somewhere like that. Princes Bridge has enough clearance to the site.
But that would only introduce other issues. Such as how you’d get the container off the barge once it’s moored on the side of the river. You could put a crane truck on the barge and then use that to move the shipping container into the right position.
But I don’t think a barge would be stable enough to do that with a crane truck. As a shipping container is between 2,360 kg - 3,980 kg depending on if you have a 20 foot or 40 foot container.
Or alternatively Arbory’s builders built shipping container-like structures within the space they are leasing.
Which is what is appears to be the case when through Arbory's Twitter media timeline from when they first opened.
It’s just a little disappointing everyone seems to be jumping on the shipping container concept without thinking through the complexities of what would be involved with getting shipping containers there.
Pondering on all this did leave me with one other question and that was the question of supplies.
As I said there’s no road access to that part of the Yarra.
The closes is the other side of Princes Bridge or road level St Kilda Road next to Flinders Street Station.
The most direct though hardly the cheapest would be by river, but I doubt there’s any delivery companies that deliver by water.
But it does make me wonder how they bring in kegs of beer and the food and everything.
There’s no access from the station, well not for patrons, maybe there’s something in their lease about having access via the station for deliveries. But even then there’s little road access to that part of the station. Road access to Flinders Street Station is from along Banana Alley. I think there’s station access along there, that might get you near the end of the station’s edge. But that’d still be on the wrong level. The road access for the station is at rail height and sort of at station height. While Arbory is sort of at station / rail height.
Perhaps they just walk everything down from road height, or around Princes Bridge. This question has been vexing me a little bit, so I’ve emailed them which, I assume if I were to look back on it now in the slightly harder light of day compared to when I wrote it late at night will seem a bit rambling. Oh well.
