Red Gum BBQ’s Melissa Goffin is from Florida and her husband and co-founder Martin Goffin is from rural England, but the pair have a love for slow-smoked, Southern-style barbeque in common.

Red Gum first opened on Arthurs Seat Road in Red Hill back in 2017. It quickly became a Peninsula favourite for its Southern American barbeque staples like 12-hour-smoked beef brisket, homemade pork and beef sausages, and six-hour smoked ribs. All proteins are smoked on-site using locally sourced red gum, and served alongside classic Southern fixings of maple roasted brussels sprouts and cornbread with honey butter.

Now the Goffins have launched Red Gum BBQ at Home, a second takeaway shop and production facility in Seaford, near Frankston in Melbourne’s south-east.

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“It’s the same sort of foundations of low and slow, Southern-style food, but it’s a much more playful menu,” says Melissa.

At Seaford, super-sized barbeque platters make way for handheld items like burgers, sandwiches and hotdogs. Items on the ever-rotating menu may include house-made charcoal-grilled burgers, buttermilk fried chicken sandwiches, smoked turkey clubs with house-cured smoked bacon, and loaded chilli dogs. The team also has plans to start curing its own brisket for pastrami sandwiches, Reubens and an upcoming range of smallgoods.

Though takeaway food is an obvious draw, retail products will lay the foundation of the Seaford venue. The Goffins will use the new facilities – which swap gas for a fully electric kitchen – to double down on their existing range of free-range meats, rubs and barbeque sauces, which will soon be distributed in specialty grocers and butchers across the state.

The Seaford shop will also be home to Big Red: a large trailer smoker for off-site catering gigs as well as on-site pop-ups and parties.

The space takes design cues from the Red Hill flagship, pairing the industrial backdrop with natural elements like recycled timber and hints of Americana. The custom-made LED light fixture, for instance, gives new use to a sleeper salvaged from Flinders Pier, and the Ball mason jars that hang from the bottom pay homage to traditional American pickling vessels.

The Goffins also share a commitment to ethical, community-minded business operations. Their Red Hill location is the only B Corp-certified restaurant in Australia, and they’re committed to maintaining that integrity as they enter the next chapter of their business.

“We have really strong values around the type of business that we want it to be, and that’s been carried through … from the way we pay our staff to our giving back to the community to environmental sustainability,” says Melissa.

Red Gum BBQ at Home
21 Rutherford Road, Seaford
No phone

Hours:
Mon to Fri 9.30am–4pm

redgumbbq.com.au