Two founders, one grill, and a stubborn idea about Friday nights
Roo & Emu started as a Sunday pop-up behind a Perth pawn shop. Sixteen years later we run a wood-fired bistro, a licensed gaming salon and twelve rooms — still family-owned, still cooking over coals.
How the room grew
Four moves, one fire that never went out, and a wheel we bought off a retiring croupier in 2011.
The Pop-Up Years
A borrowed grill, forty covers a night, and a queue down the laneway. We ran out of food by 8pm for the first month.
St Georges Terrace
We took over the old watchmaker's showroom — terrazzo floors, pressed-metal ceiling, and our first proper wood oven.
The Gaming Licence
The salon opened with one roulette table and a strict no-attitude policy. The wheel from the pop-up days finally retired with honours.
Rooms Upstairs
Twelve rooms on the two floors above — built for wedding parties, conference crowds and anyone who stayed too long at the bar.
The Hall
We knocked through the top floor for the 120-seat conference hall. The first booking was a poker club's annual meeting — naturally.
Sixteen Years In
Same founders, same coals, second-generation regulars at the bar. The wheel's had two rebuilds; the welcome hasn't changed.
Fair odds in the kitchen and on the floor
We run the restaurant the way we run the tables: honest prices, generous portions, and no tricks. If a dish isn't right, it doesn't leave the pass. If a game feels wrong, the pit boss shuts it down. That's the whole philosophy, really.
Guests who return within a year
Bookings that rebook on the spot
Average tenure of our floor staff
The wall by the door
WA Tourism Awards
Best Boutique Hospitality Venue, 2023 & 2024. The trophy lives next to the till.
Four and a Half Stars
The West Australian's dining guide, four years running. We framed that one too.
240,000 Guests
Counted honestly since 2009, including the bloke who comes every Tuesday for the schnitty.
$180k Raised
From our charity poker nights since 2015 — half goes to Perth children's charities.
The people who never left
Runs the floor, knows every regular's order, still works the grill on Sundays.
Runs the kitchen, sources the market run at 6am, and refuses to own a freezer.
Ex-Fremantle, ten years on our coals, writes the daily blackboard herself.
Twenty years on Perth floors. Runs the salon like a good home game: fair and friendly.
Nights we're still talking about
How the kitchen actually runs
Family meal at 4:30 every day — everyone sits, including the founders. Staff meals come off the same coals as yours. Nobody works a double on their birthday, and the record player in the prep kitchen belongs to whoever closed the night before.
