Bondi surfers bring New York City to a standstill with wildly popular takeaway chain Fishbowl!

"The most viral spot in New York for lunch!"

Eight years back, three Bondi surfers, all of ‘em shredders and all under thirty, opened a little takeaway joint called Fishbowl serving “Japanese-leaning, Los Angeles style poke” in the arcade underneath the vast and then new Pacific apartment complex on beachfront Campbell Parade.

Real low-key, all of ‘em, Nic Pestalozzi, Casper Ettleson and Nathan Dalah, working behind the counter slinging bowls in the tiny 280 square foot restaurant, a couple of benches and stools for anyone who needed their grinds right now. 

They called it Fishbowl and it soon morphed away from straight poke and into selling Japanese-style fish/tofu/chicken salad bowls at a bigger joint across the way and by 2022 the restaurants were selling sixty-million bucks in bowls a year. 

If you wanna count the locations, there’s forty-five stores across Australia, twenty six in Sydney, nine in Melbourne, and ten in Queensland.

And, now, New Yorkers have lined up for hours to get a taste of the wildly popular takeaway chain, with one foodie calling it the “the most viral spot for lunch” although in the US it’s called This Bowl not Fishbowl ‘cause there’s chicken and beef on the menu.

@rubylilyyyyy Explain to me why every Australian in NYC right now feels overly protective of Fish Bowl… I just cant qeue for another thing @THISBOWL NYC #newyork #spring #fyp #fypシ #newyorkcity #aussie #fishbowl ♬ original sound – rubylily

“People are right in calling this one of the best lunch options and eve quick dinners because we are going to be craving their bowls and can’t wait to work through their whole menu, definitely worth the hype,” they said. 

There’s been a little back and forthing on social about whether or not they’re poke bowls and claims that poke had been “stolen and gentrified”.

“Firstly, we’re not poke and don’t claim to be, poke is from Hawaii, and is a very different style meal to the salads we serve,” co-founder Nic Pestalozzi told the Murdoch Press. “We serve salads, they’re full of vegetables, and an array of proteins. Poke is all about raw fish, it’s great, but it’s not what we do.”

But, whatever, building a wildly successful worldwide biz selling healthy, and relatively cheap, food at a a time when fatties are taking over the world gotta be regarded as inspirational, no?