Community Always | Short Order Burger Co | Episode 55*
Community Always Episode 55, presented alongside adidas Originals, sits down with the team behind Short Order Burger Co. What started in 2015 out of a shipping container at The Mantle in Fremantle was built on an uncomplicated premise drawn from classic American diner cooks: keep the menu tight, cook fresh to order, and never compromise on the baseline ingredients. Over a decade later, that standard has only strengthened. While expanding across three locations often pushes operations toward cost-cutting shortcuts, Short Order doubled down on quality. The beef is never frozen, patties are hand-rolled before every service, and the blend itself is a custom Southwest Angus and Wagyu cross developed specifically with P. Princi Butchers.
That deliberate focus took them from a weekend pop-up to permanent dining rooms, including a milestone opening in Baldivis that proved their straightforward hospitality translates well outside the inner-city bubble. Alongside their staple menu, occasional specials keep things interesting, headlined by the long-awaited return of their Goldbird fried chicken tenders. Originally tested as a Fremantle pop-up, the project was shelved so the independent team could dedicate their resources entirely to building the Baldivis venue, making its return a direct answer to years of requests from regulars.
Beyond the food, the backbone of Short Order has always been the crowd that showed up when the business was barely off the ground. In the early container days, customers routinely waited two hours in line while a small crew worked a single flat-top grill, backed heavily by Perth's broader hospitality circle. Over a decade later, those same regulars have held wedding receptions in the dining rooms and now bring their kids through the doors, while staff from the shipping container era still run the line. For Short Order, community is not a talking point; it is simply people showing up for each other.
What inspired the creation of Short Order and what makes it unique?
The idea for Short Order really came out of the burger craze in Melbourne in the few years before I moved to Perth. Pretty much every Sunday night, my best mates and I would go and try a newly opened burger spot. It became a bit of a ritual for us, but I was also quietly figuring out what I thought made a great burger and developing my own ideas around what I would do differently.
When I moved to Perth, I saw an opportunity to turn that hobby into something on the weekends. In 2015, I finally gave it a go out of a little shipping container at the back of a warehouse in Fremantle called The Mantle. I was still working full time and really had no idea where it would lead, but the response was overwhelming. My wife was there from day one, taking orders on our very first day. She believed in what I was doing and gave me the nudge I needed to make this thing work. About eight months in, with her support and the response we were getting from customers, I decided to quit a decent-paying job to make burgers full time.
American diners and their short-order cooks were a big inspiration from the beginning. A small, simple menu, cooked fresh to order. That simplicity is still at the heart of what we do. We want to make really good burgers, really well, using the best and freshest ingredients we can. We don’t freeze anything, and we still hand-roll our beef for every service. More importantly, as we’ve grown, we’ve never tried to make the product cheaper or easier at the expense of quality. We’ve actually gone the other way and continued investing in it.
Today, we use a really special Southwest Angus x Wagyu blend that we developed with P. Princi Butchers. It’s a significant investment for something that ends up in a burger, but that probably sums up Short Order pretty well. I want someone who first came to us at that shipping container in 2015 to come in today and feel like their burger has only gotten better.
Any exciting moments coming up or previous highlights that you'd like to share?
There have been a lot of moments over the years that we're really proud of. Going from that shipping container at The Mantle to opening our own restaurants was obviously huge, and opening our third store in Baldivis was another massive milestone for us.
We’d never experienced an opening quite like Baldivis. The response was enormous from day one, and after all the work that went into getting it open, it was pretty special to see. We’ve also ended up with an incredible team down there and have felt genuinely welcomed by the local community.
Another thing we've really enjoyed over the past few years has been having a bit more fun with our occasional specials. We don’t do them constantly, so when we do, we try to make them worthwhile. The response has been amazing, particularly when people keep asking months later for certain ones to come back.
Which leads into something we’re excited about. We're bringing back our most requested special, the Goldbird tenders. Goldbird started as a little fried chicken pop up we did in Fremantle, and people really got behind it. We actually had plans for a permanent Goldbird location, but it happened around the same time we were building Short Order Baldivis. As a small independent business, we realised we simply couldn't do both properly at the same time, so Short Order had to come first. Even now, we still get messages through the Goldbird Instagram every couple of weeks asking when it’s coming back. We love that people still remember it, so it feels good to finally give everyone another chance to get their hands on the tenders.
How important is community to your business?
Community has probably played a bigger role in Short Order's story than I realised when I first started it.
Back in the Mantle days, there were Friday nights when people would wait close to two hours for a burger. We were cooking on this tiny grill in a shipping container, completely overwhelmed by how many people were turning up, and yet people kept coming back. That support was ultimately what gave me the confidence to leave my job and take a chance on Short Order. I’ve never forgotten that. A lot of those early customers were people from Perth’s hospitality community who shared similar ideas about good food, good service and looking after people. They supported us when we were tiny, and I think that shaped how I’ve always wanted Short Order to operate.
One of the really special things now is seeing how much life has happened around Short Order in the years since. We have friends and regulars who had their first dates at The Mantle who are now married and bringing their kids in for burgers. We've even had a wedding in the newer Fremantle location for a couple whose first date was at Short Order at The Mantle. Things like that are pretty amazing to think about. You start a burger shop and never imagine that, more than a decade later, it will have become a small part of people's lives and their stories.
Over the years, we’ve built lifelong relationships with regulars, partnerships with other local businesses and some genuinely great friendships. We even still have people working with us who were there in the Mantle days, more than a decade later. That means a lot to me. Short Order has never really felt like just a group of restaurants. There’s a family around it. Our team, our regulars, other small businesses and the communities around each of our stores.
For myself and the team, community is really just people showing up for each other. People did that for us when Short Order was nothing more than a rented kitchen in a shipping container and an idea, so I think we have a responsibility to do the same for the people and communities that continue to support us.
Thanks for reading! Listen to Short Order's playlist on Spotify or Apple Music.