It’s obvious to anyone passing through that Newtown has very…exclusive tastes when it comes to restaurants. It may surprise you to learn that once upon a time, the famously trendy and bohemian suburb was home to its very own McDonald’s, which opened in 1983. Just 15 years later, Ronald and friends were run out of ‘town by the area’s changing demographic, which rebelled against the Golden Arches’ high-fat, low-cleanliness approach by voting with their livers…but that’s another story.

Who’s paying the electricity?

But some fast food vendors didn’t learn from Mickey D’s drubbing. Case in point: the hot pink, pizza-tossing also-rans Eagle Boys, who evidently thought that Newtown’s absence of junk food was a void waiting to be filled. If they’d just taken the time to walk about five seconds up the road to discover the ‘vegetarian butcher‘ they might have gotten the hint early. Instead, they stood their ground, took the risk, and last January, paid the price.

Pizza Haven, a safe haven for pizza, 1988. Image courtesy sydneyarchives.info/Robert Parkinson

Now, in fairness, this location had a long history dispensing trashy food; it was for years a Pizza Haven, a pizza chain so innocuous that even the bloodthirsty firebombers of Newtown didn’t see it as a threat. It wasn’t until Eagle Boys bought out the chain in 2008 and added that obnoxious day-glo colouring to the otherwise handsome corner building that drastic action was home-delivered.

I’m still not clear what Eagle Boys is meant to mean.

Despite a statement from Eagle Boys teasing the outlet’s return, no such move has yet been made. And while the Boys sit in their hot pink nest wondering what went so horribly wrong, it might now dawn on them just why the Colonel and Pizza Hut gave King Street and its residents such a wide berth. Fittingly, all that remains of Eagle Boys’ unwanted, doughy legacy is a kind of hot pink neon halo above the door.