First Look: With $6 Pasta and $6 Punch, Times New Roman Is Almost Too Good To Be True

With the cost of living, it’s nice when dining-out staples such as pasta and cocktails come in under $20. But at Fitzroy North restaurant Good Times , affordable bowls of pasta and carafes of wine have been $9 since it opened in 2019.

Now Chelsea Davis and Jarrod Agatanovic, who own Good Times with Colin McAleer, have brought a similar menu and wallet-friendly ethos to a new Brunswick East sibling, Times New Roman.

“I see a lot of restaurants [saying], ‘We need to put up our prices because we’re not getting any money’,” Davis tells Broadsheet. “But then people aren’t able to keep spending. They’ll have one glass of wine for $16 and that’s it for the day.”

She prefers a business model that relies on volume and is backed by regulars who dine multiple times a week or stay for an extra drink because doing so doesn’t kill their budgets.

“We’ve got the amount of people to help sustain it,” she says. “We have so many regulars who come in, I’m not even joking, three days in a row, because they’re like, ‘This is the only time I can go out and have some fun’.”

Good Times regulars will recognise the pasta line-up, with six options spanning meat and vegan bolognaise, Napoletana, cacio e pepe and walnut pesto. They can be made gluten-free, and there are always vegan and dairy-free options. But while Good Times embraces hearty portions designed to fill up on, Davis identified a gap in the market for snack-sized bowls ideal for pre-gaming with drinks. So alongside standard bowls priced from $12–$18, you can order petite portions of certain pastas for as little as $6.

For the same price, find white anchovies, olives, Cheezels, and mini burrata, that you can mix and match into your own snack plate. Or order the snack plate for $24 alongside salads like a $12 vinegary number with trout, tomato, pickles and parmesan.

Most glasses of wine are priced in the low double digits. “We made deals with some good local winemakers,” Davis says, and notes securing well-priced stock and passing the savings back to customers is key. The wine list is all-Australian and leans heavily on Victorian producers the team has close relationships with.

“There are a lot of winemakers here who have too much wine, to the point where it gets turned to vinegar and has to be scrapped,” she says. “I’m like, ‘Why are we importing stuff when we’ve got really good wine here?’”

Drinks also include punch, one of Davis’s go-to party staples. “I’m religious about punch, and I’m just trying to bring it back,” she says. It comes in two variations: white wine, tinned fruit and ginger ale or red wine with peaches – both from just $6 a glass.

Housed in a former Mexican restaurant on Lygon Street, the space is a kitschy interpretation of Rome, with dark timber repurposed from the previous fit-out. Davis says the build generated only four buckets of waste – everything else was recycled or repurposed with the help of friends and former Good Times employees.

Out front, there’s pavement seating, while a red room at the back is fitted with vintage church pews. And there's a courtyard, complete with a Roman-inspired water feature.

Times New Roman
66 Lygon Street, Brunswick East
No phone

Hours:
Thur and Fri 4pm–11.30pm
Sat midday–11.30pm

instagram.com/timesnewromanbar