The Canberra Pie Cart has spent the past two years at the Yarralumla Play Station. Photo: James Coleman.
This could be your chance to own Canberra’s original food truck.
Back in the 1940s, the city was little more than a dusty sheep paddock with a few buildings scattered around – Parliament House, Albert Hall, the Sydney and Melbourne buildings, a few government offices and houses, and … yeah, that’s it.
So if you wanted a bite to eat in your lunch break, your best bet was the Canberra Pie Cart.
For decades, this cream-coloured Chevy van would do the rounds of Canberra’s office buildings, selling pies and pastries to a steadily growing queue of public servants and parliamentarians.
Behind the wheel sat Tom Wilkinson, who earned a name for himself as baker at Top Hat Café on the corner of Furneaux and Franklin streets in Manuka.
Wilkie’s Pie Cart, as it was known then, was one of only two food trucks in the city at the time and rumour suggests there was a switchboard operator in Parliament House who would ring around the different departments to let them know the van’s proximity.
It’s also said Canberra’s early football matches were staggered purely so Wilkie had time to get around to all of them during half-time.
All these years later, the very same 1939 Chevrolet is hitting the market. But there are a few conditions.
The van has spent the past two years under a car port at the Yarralumla Play Station, visible to passengers of the site’s miniature railway ride.
Prior to this, it spent years moving between the houses of members of the Council of ACT Motor Clubs (CACTMC).
The council has now decided it’s time to find it a new, more permanent, home.
It’s insured for $35,000, and would be sold unregistered.
But secretary Peter Atkinson says any offers around that figure must include the stipulation it stays in the ACT.
“It’s iconic for Canberra – nobody else cares about it – so yes, that’s part of the deal,” he says.
Council of ACT Motor Clubs secretary Peter Atkinson jumps behind the pie cart wheel. Photo: James Coleman.
The council initially approached the National Museum of Australia and Canberra Museum and Gallery to see if they wanted to add it to their collections, but didn’t receive much interest.
“I asked, ‘Do we have to find a picture of Chifley buying a pie out of the side?’ and the director of the museum said, ‘Yeah, that would do it’, but we couldn’t find that,” Peter says.
Wilkie eventually handed the running of the pie cart to one of his pastry cooks, Leicester Donohue, and the name shifted to Donohue’s Pie Cart while its reach continued to spread into Barton and Fyshwick.
But in the 1970s, Donohue decided to upgrade to a Toyota van and the Chevy took on more of a back-up role.
Years later, it wound up dumped down a gully on a property in Burra, south of Queanbeyan – left to rot.
Somewhere along the line, it moved to a property in Murrumbateman where it was discovered “by pure chance” in the late 1990s.
The council says “months of talks, negotiations and analysis” followed before it did a deal with Copland College to restore it. The ACT Government also came on board with a heritage grant, along with Shannons Insurance and a whole host of local businesses whose names are now emblazoned in a large plaque on the van’s side.
The past few years have been simply a case of “ongoing maintenance”, Peter says.
How the Pie Cart was found in Murrumbateman. Photo: Council of ACT Motor Clubs.
There was a patch when it struggled to go up inclines at any more than walking pace – to the point it once took four hours to drive it from Kingston to Fraser – but an overhaul of the fuel system fixed that.
So far, the council has only received verbal offers – none “anywhere near enough for us to sell it”.
“This has got so much history, it makes a big difference to the value,” Peter says.
It’ll be “a dream come true” if the buyer converts it back into a food truck and relives its glory days, he says.
And if it doesn’t sell? The council has had conversations with Yarralumla Play Station director Jason Perkins about it possibly becoming a permanent fixture…
Interested? Contact the CACTMC president via email (president@cactmc.org.au).
