Bogan Hospitality

Bogan hospitality sounds like a bit of a contradiction but it’s alive and well in Tasmania, particularly beyond the wealthier suburbs of Hobart and Launceston, and also in the hinterland of many Australian cities.

Bogan hospitality is evident in a local team that defies woke corporate norms and is led by someone like Cheryl, a stocky tatooed mother and mgr on the verge of snapping, whose subtext is a repressed resentment about having to serve middle-class weekenders who are stuck up and “too fucken fussy.”

Bogan hospitality is being served a stodgy pie or sausage roll by Tina, a pale, very skinny 15yo who would have become a bit prettier and smarter if she had parents who could afford to send her to a private school, and didn’t have other teens label her with the awful nickname, “Thickie.”

Bogan hospitality is getting a number for your table and the waiter, cockhead Kev, bringing out food for other numbers because his math brain only works when he’s buying fuel for his trail bike, condoms, and a cheap bottle of wine for Thickie’s 17yo sister, Trace.

Bogan hospitality is watching Cheryl’s 22yo nephew, Toby, who is a keen collector of speeding fines and can’t get a job anywhere else, standing beside a hipster and almost trembling with rage whilst being lectured about the difference between a piccolo and a machiatto.

Bogan hospitality is a niche part of regional economies and the hospitality industry that is supported by locals who actually prefer the familiarity and intimacy of being served by others who are a bit rude, vulgar, and tardy.

Bogan hospitality, according to food critics, only survives because it’s as cheap as deathstar franchises. But there are nuances, particularly the subtle balance of just enough quantity and quality to not lose customers despite the lack of service, incompetence, and Cheryl’s cursing in less crowded moments.