Pop’s Postie Roll transforms part of a family-run post office into a takeaway window, dealing in fast and wallet-friendly chicken rolls inspired by those you can get in Ireland.
Melbourne loves an eatery in an unexpected location, and it’s a big month for new finds. First, a pizza bar in a laundromat. Now, a chicken roll shop in a post office.
On Canterbury’s Maling Road, a charming east-side shopping strip with a village vibe, Hayden Connolly’s parents have run the local post office for more than two decades. He worked there during his high school and uni years; now he’s returned to the family business to open hole-in-the-wall takeaway shop Pop’s Postie Roll in the front window.
It’s an effort to diversify income streams and drum up new interest in the post office, while the Connollys grapple with the decline in trade that’s come with digitisation.
“When I was a kid … we used to sell thousands of newspapers every day. Now we’re lucky to sell $300 worth,” says Connolly. “That transition has been difficult.”
Over the past week, while quietly trialling Pop’s, Connolly says they’ve “already had people back in the post office who we haven’t seen in years because they want to see something different”.
Working as a business manager in the food industry gave Connolly the acumen. But the quirky concept came from his gap year, when he discovered the chicken-fillet rolls sold in nearly every second newsagent and convenience store in his ancestral Ireland.
Named for Connolly’s Irish grandfather, Pop’s is out to replicate the rolls from the Emerald Isle, which means making them cheap, quick and easy above all else.
The first box is ticked, with prices set at $11 for a whole roll and $7 for half, plus a dollar off if you buy something at the post office.
“Price is the most important thing to maintain,” says Connolly, whose target market is tradies, school kids and Irish expats.
Speed is also top of mind, despite the shop being less than eight square metres and only having room for two staff members, with two portholes in its glass frontage for service.
Crumbed chicken fillets are fried in bulk, so you don’t have to wait. Iceberg lettuce and cheddar cheese are pre-shredded. Tomatoes are pre-cut. Your choice of those fillings goes into a long, soft Baker’s Delight roll from down the road, which are filled to order.
The sauce rotation currently includes two mayos from popular Irish brand Blenders that are hard to get in Australia: one that’s chilli- and honey-infused, another that’s Mexican-inspired. (But they’re only around while stocks last due to importing issues; after that, it’s tomato sauce, mayo or mustard.)
There are no fancy, cheffy flourishes. But if you’re after the kind of generously priced – and sized – sandwich you might find at a no-frills country bakery, Pop’s is for you. And if it succeeds, it may even transplant elsewhere, with Connolly considering franchising.
For now, it’s an uncommonly fresh face on a street full of longstanding businesses, which also recently welcomed new cake and pastry spot Beurre, just across from Pop’s, following the opening of the neighbourhood’s first wine bar Lennox in 2023.
Breakfast and lunch Mon-Sat
104 Maling Road, Canterbury, popspostieroll.com
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