Along the wall of Pakington Street’s newest venue Boss Burger Co, the Rock sits shoulder-to-shoulder with Spilotro (AKA Joe Pesci). It’s a wall lined with some of the biggest bosses from pop culture over the years, and it’d only be fitting to add burger joint owners Tim Harrison, brothers Jamie Kolovos and Jerry Kolovos and John Katos to the mural for how they’ve seemingly taken over the burger scene in Geelong.
“People want to come to these places and they want to be seen because this is the place to be and you’re getting a better quality food as well,” Tim says.
And it couldn’t be truer, with the #bossburgerco hashtag garnering hundreds of mentions after opening around two months ago. The venue’s infiltration on social media was only to be expected with Tim the man behind Instagram account Burgers of Geelong and fellow owners Jamie, Jerry and John also owners of Launch Espresso renowned for their burgers.
“I feel like just having a good reputation people obviously believe in our product,” Jamie says of the ability to gain an audience at both Launch and Boss Burger Co.
“They knew we’d deliver another really high quality product, which followed our favour and we’ve delivered that and have people coming back.”
“And it keeps the network of people,” Tim adds. “Once they come, they know what we’re doing. There’s a lot of people who sheepishly walk in and we’ll be like, ‘Hey mate, you were here today at lunch’” he laughs. “And they love it.”
A good burger isn’t easy to come by even with the collective minds of some of Geelong’s finest burger connoisseurs. In creating the Boss Burger Co classics, the Launch team wanted to have a “point of difference” between the two locations.
After spending six months trialling over 40 different bakers, the team settled on a place from Melbourne to specially make the Boss Burger Co buns. With the sauce made in house and meat from a local supplier, the Instagram favourites were quickly created.
“Every other day Jamie and I were just eating burgers trying to get it right – going through so many different suppliers and combos. We decided that once we ate our burger we just knew that was it. And we put it against other things we tried but we kept coming back to that one burger,” Tim says.
The menu as it stands features four beef burgers (with one for the kids), a chicken burger and a vego burger. Sides come in the form of “loaded fries”, onion rings, chicken tenders and of course the extras that can be thrown into the six burgers mentioned earlier.
“We’re working on a couple of different things to add to the menu as well,” Jamie says.
“Just keep it exciting,” Tim adds. “We can say there’s a lot more coming and we’re going to broaden our spectrum and keep it interesting for people. There’s a lot of crazy stuff going on in Melbourne so we’re going to bring that in to Geelong.”
And that’s not all that’s changing, as our attention directs to the mural behind us, Tim mentions there are still bosses to join the ranks.
“We haven’t finished yet, there’s a lot more to go,” Tim says.
“We wanted to do that definitely from the start. We have a lot of ideas and that’s one we stopped on and it felt right. It just gives something for people to talk about and look at. We’ll fill it right up, maybe we need to get some female bosses up there?”
Written & photographed by Amanda Sherring
Where: 206 Pakington St, Geelong West
When:Wed-Sun 11am-9pm
