Harry’s Café de Wheels: Eye of the tiger

There’s only one place to go at 1am after a boozy night in Sydney and you can navigate there through blurry eyes by heading towards the Navy ships docked at Potts Point.

Harry’s Café de Wheels, the little street cart in Woolloomooloo, has been serving the public its famous pies since the 1930s.

Colonel Sanders himself stopped by Harry’s and enjoyed the food so much he ate three pies with peas while leaning on his cane in front of the caravan.

Run today by its third owner Michael Hannah, there are Harry’s franchises in the original site in Woolloomooloo, as well as in Newcastle, Haymarket, Liverpool, Parramatta, Tempe, Burwood, Broadway and Penrith, with more on the way.

They offer a range of hearty pies, as well as a few different hotdogs and traditional sweets including banana bread, custard tarts and choc chip cookies.

But, the stars of the show are the pies, which today include flavours such as pie and peas, pie and mash, chicken and mushroom, seafood pie, lean beef and curry pie and, of course, their signature menu item – Harry’s Tiger. This monster is a chunky lean beef pie loaded up with mushy peas, mash and gravy.

While the pies lure and hook people in, the allure of Harry’s arguably lies in its reputation and history.

The original founder of Harry’s Café de Wheels, Harry Edwards, was an enterprising Sydneysider who became an integral part of Sydney’s nightlife – a late night meal at Harry’s was keenly sought by sailors, soldiers, cabbies, startlets and police alike. In 1938 Harry enlisted in the AIF during WWII and was shipped to the Middle East.

In his time there, Harry earned the nickname “Tiger” for his boxing prowess, a legacy that came home with him. When he returned home he quickly reopened Harry’s, and the business name came about when the council ruled that mobile food vendors had to move a minimum of 12 inches a day, to which Harry obliged.

Harry ran the café until he sold it to its next owner, Alex Kuronya, in 1975. Current owner Michael Hannah says Harry was a decent man who worked hard to look after his two disabled daughters Noeleen and Kathleen. Michael went on to have a special relationship with the Edwards family.

“I learned about Harry when I purchased Harry’s from Alex,” Michael says.

“I searched for and found his sister Flo, who was 88, and his wife Gladys who was around the same age.

“I had a picnic at the back of Harry’s shortly after I bought it with Flo, Gladys, Noeleen and Kathleen, where I learned the history of the Edwards family and subsequently became friends with Flo.

“I would often take her for a meal or drive and I was with her the night she died in Sydney hospital.”

Michael’s passion for Harry’s began when his family moved to Sydney from Cairns, where his father took up work as a cab driver. He would often take Michael and his brother for a pie with peas or a pie with veg – as they called them back then – at Harry’s, where they “mixed with sailors and ladies dressed in ball gowns”.

Like Harry, Michael was in the armed forces, and after returning from Vietnam he headed straight down to Harry’s to grab a bite.

“I don’t think there was much choice [on what flavour pie] from memory, it was basically a pie and sauce or one with peas,” Michael says.

“It was nice to feel normal again after months of living in the jungle and eating American ration packs of dehydrated food.”

The decision to buy Harry’s came about when Michael was working as comedian Rodney Rude’s manager. During their travels they would always check out local pie shops in every town or city they visited.

“When we were back in Sydney I would go to Harry’s Café de Wheels occasionally, and one night after a few drinks I told Alex that when he decided to sell he should sell it to me,” Michael says.

A few months later, Michael went back down to Harry’s and discovered Alex’s wife, who did a lot of the prep work, had broken her leg. Taking on the extra responsibilities wore Alex out and so they decided to sell.

Despite its stellar reputation, taking on Harry’s was no easy feat.

“The Harry’s I bought was not the original caravan, but it had rusted badly from the years by the bay and the salt water in the air. Alex had replaced it with a work shed a bit like today’s container conversions,” Michael says.

“I decided to build a replica of the old van and make it bigger and put as much of Harry’s history on it as possible.

“I was the only employee but I had to get into debt to buy it and build a new one, so I had to be creative.

“To add to that, the people who made the pies decided that due to family illness they would sell out and the people they sold to went down the market.”

After that, Michael had to teach himself to make pies and find other suppliers to make it work, and after business kicked off, he found an old tram in a paddock in Rutherglen near Newcastle, which he decided to refurbish. Today this is Harry’s Newcastle – the first Harry’s franchise of many.

All of the pies are made at a production warehouse and distributed to the small and iconic Harry’s stores. The best seller is the Tiger Pie, which Michael added to the menu when he bought Harry’s.

“When I bought Harry’s it [the best seller] was a pie and peas, so I added the mash and gravy and called it a Tiger, which was Harry Edwards’ nickname and the nickname of the battalion I served with in Vietnam,” Michael says.

Michael has tried to keep the recipes as close to the originals as possible, but he also says keeping up with customer demand is important. While Michael did dabble in organics before it was cool, there was little reception from the community as they didn’t know what organic was. But, he’s getting back on the bandwagon.

“I have been moving the franchises towards the future, we use grass-fed lean topside steak cooked in filtered water with organic rock salt and organic shortening in the pastry,” Michael says.

“I am about to make all chicken pies with certified organic chicken and we will be selling organic chicken tenders on a roll with mushy peas.”

Harry’s heyday is far from over, with a recently opened store in Manila in the Philippines. Michael also recently signed a licence agreement with a Chinese partner, who are currently baking in Shenzen in Southern China.

There are also negotiations underway to open up in South Korea, three new outlets due to open up in Sydney, as well as looking to build a new export factory.

Harry’s has come a long way from a tiny caravan on wheels.