The choice is yours

Offering super health-conscious food is a rising trend for many inner city cafes and restaurants, but it’s nothing new for Argo on the Parade. Four years on and the clear vision of this café marks it as one of South Australia’s most popular and successful.

Daniel Milky manages this family-owned business with his parents and seven siblings. The Milky family has composed a straightforward concept – to make healthy food both accessible and delicious.

For 59 years Argo on the Parade was a bustling continental deli. Some of the original owners were from Daniel’s family. But after they sold the shop in the early 2000s business dwindled, and it eventually closed. A few years later Daniel and his family resurrected the site and gave it a modern makeover.

Argo on the Parade now caters for a wide range of food intolerances and preferences from low fructose diets to gluten intolerance, veganism and vegetarianism. Such diverse requirements might have restricted the results but the cafe offers a varied, mouth-watering selection of contemporary, fresh cuisine. Their concept is working. It is attracting customers in droves.

“I was only 23 at the time we opened Argo on the Parade, back in 2010”, he says. “It’s been five years of absolute craziness since then.” Daniel describes the café as having eclectic appeal. A celiac himself, and with vegan sisters, the family wanted the café to be inclusive. “We don’t just attract one narrow group of customers,” Daniel explains. “We want everyone to feel welcomed and comfortable.

As well as seating 110 people the café offers takeaway food and coffee. Demand on the kitchen is considerable. Typically there are up to 25 staff working in the restaurant at any time, including three baristas.

At Argo on the Parade importance is placed on being a nonjudgemental environment that is accessible and warm. There’s no judgement or food snobbery.

“We don’t judge people for what they choose to eat”, says Daniel. “We want to support people and enable them to make healthier choices. But, of course, what they end up eating is up to them.”

Ahead of the crowd and with queues out the door – for Adelaide, Argo on the Parade has become a healthy obsession.

A really busy café generates a lot of dishes, which can lead to time and labour inefficiencies. To combat this Daniel asked Moffat to install a Wexiodisk WD-153 ICS+ conveyor dishwasher. This has reduced the usual four staff washing dishes to just the one, or perhaps two when busiest. In addition, Argo on the Parade has installed Moffat’s Wexiodisk PRM-90 corner pre-rinse machine, a chain drive and a Wexiodisk sorting station.

Daniel knows these ovens well and thinks they are amazing. “I find they work best when I am actively involved with the process – designing the menus and helping staff use the ovens in the most appropriate way,” he says. “That’s when the machinery really shines”.

Daniel explains that since installing the Sŏta speed cook ovens they have been able to reduce toasting time on menu items such as sandwiches from seven minutes down to one and a half minutes. So the customers get in and out of the café quickly, they’re happy for not waiting too long, and Argo on the Parade maintains a rapid pace of turnover.