Easey's — Restaurant in Melbourne

I stumbled across this place when parking the car on a Saturday summer evening to go to the Melba Spiegeltent. Looked up and saw 3 Melbourne trains mounted on the roof of a building. I went online to find more about the place and found there was a restaurant at the bottom and top. With my son's birthday coming up, it was a must visit. The website was great, particularly easy on my smartphone, so I made a booking. It says you can only book for one hour, but we were there a little longer so there can't have been another booking after us. We arrived a little early and the lovely J'aime was a welcoming host, told me where to go and to meet the staff upstairs. We all climbed the stairs that are graffiti covered to the top. When you're almost at the top carriage, there is a little break out space with three tables and chairs in an outside area, enclosed in. Nice. Few more steps and we are in a good old Melbourne train. There is quite a bit of history on how these carriages ended up here but that's for another time. We were greeted by Nisha who led us to our table. Comfortable for 4 but there was 6 so a little tight but of course, you're not going to stay long so it was okay. The views aren't too bad. You can open some of the top windows to let in some fresh air which was nice as the sun had heated up the space. The menu is American style fast food and there wasn't an inch of broccoli or beans to be seen. This is truly a fast food place to eat and it doesn't pretend to be anything else. We started with some buffalo chicken wings and tots which are actually what we call potato gems. They came with some little sauces in plastic containers one of which smelt odd, so we just dipped in the aioli. We ordered burgers which were....good but nothing outstanding. Those that ate the hot dog said it was okay but nothing spectacular. When the food arrives it's served on enamel plates and the burger is wrapped up in paper. That's it. The size of the burgers was good and the taste okay. There was a lot of bun and most of us just left either the top or bottom of the bun aside. Drinks were good but a lot of ice. Toilets are available upstairs and certainly covered in graffiti. They are clean. There is an elevator for anyone in a wheelchair or needing assistance. Kid-friendly, in fact, there were 5 kids rocking out with their burgers on the next table. Parking out the front can be hard but a little further down the road it was better and 2 or 4 hours. The music was probably inappropriate for kids around plus loud. No doubt perfect for the evening crowd but less so for the daytime crowd. Finally, the staff were lovely. Happy, smiling, helpful and patient. Nothing was too much trouble. That always makes the dining experience better. So big should out to J'aime, Luka, Zoe and Nisha. This is a place you feel you need to tick off your list,...

I came to easys a couple years ago and had a really great experience so I came back with my family after hyping it up and im gonna be honest we were quite disappointed. When we came in we were told there were no seats left upstairs because of bookings but could sit outside in between the trains or anywhere downstairs which we were fine with but there was barely anybody in the trains, only 3-5 tables were full and when we left there was only one morw family than when we arrived which again was kind of annoying but I can excuse it because I understand that you can't predict how long we would be there and have to prioritise bookings. The part I really was most disappointed in however was the customer service, first when we walked in and said we didnt have a booking the person working downstairs immediately acted like we were a complete burden even though the restaurant was virtually empty and it was outside of rush hour, then he just directed us upstairs when we agreed to sit outside but didnt say what to do, where to go or who to talk to, which was a bit awkward as I didnt remember the layout of the place very well as I hadn't been in years. Then the person we spoke to upstairs just said theres no seats available and we'd have to come back later even though we were told we could sit outside. After saying the guy downstairs told out we could sit outside they eventually directed us 'over there' to the 'other staircase' and didnt speak to us again for the rest of our meal. When we got our food (which i must admit did come quite quickly) the server just put the meals on either table (we had to split up because the outside tables only really fit two people and we had four) and didnt even really ask who ordered what and then left without another word so we had to rearrange our food and figure out what was what ourselves. I was also quite annoyed that on the QR code menu it said milkshakes were sold out but as we left we saw someone order a milkshake without issue. As a customer service worker myself, I understand in rush hour this stuff happens sometimes and people get tired but we came 30 minutes after the store opened and it was not busy at all, we also had bad experiences with all three workers we spoke to. To be honest I think this place got hyped up way too much and the workers seem extremely tired and fed up. Again my experience 2 years ago was amazing but unfortunately the average quality of food and well put together atmosphere is not enough to make me...

Before I yap about anything else, I'll start by saying that the double BBQ bacon burger absolutely slaps and if that's your thing I think it's a must-try.

Okay so the thing that made us curious about this place is that you can book in to dine in a train car that is on the roof. Why? I don't know, because Melbourne is just like that I guess. It's pretty awesome though - and you inherently burn a few of the calories you're about to consume as you ascend the 4 flights of stairs.

Immediately as we got to the top it was clear that the service was excellent, the waitress that seated us was super friendly. The guy who took our order was as well, and he even offered my partner to try a sample of the beer she was thinking about before she committed to it - absolute legend.

We ended up ordering the tater tots, the Louisiana Fried Chicken Sandwich and the aforementioned BBQ bacon cheeseburger. Though they appeared to be a bit blonde, the tots were perfectly cooked, crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. They were very well seasoned with chicken salt and the garlic aioli they came with was a perfect accompaniment. The fried chicken sandwich had really crispy and juicy meat and perfect bacon. The slaw was really fresh. The cheeseburger was just perfect. I'd recommend going the double as I feel that creates an ideal ratio of meat to the rest of the ingredients. The smashed patties were really crispy but not razor thin, which I love because it kept them juicy. Like all the good parts of a smash patty and a normal patty in one. What really separates this burger from all the rest are the fried crispy bits (bits of what? Magic?!), which are a stroke of genius. And the sauces, garlic mayo and BBQ, are amazing. Everything together is just an insanely decadent mouthful. Okay I need to stop. This burger has got me acting like Homer Simpson.

I don't live in Melbourne so I don't have the opportunity to come here often, so I'm going to be wistfully reminiscing about this place like a sailors wife waiting for her spouse to return from the sea. Not to be dramatic or anything.

Thanks for the meal, hope we'll be back! And shout out to the...