How now, Brown Cow: Hungry Brown Cow moves from brownies to burgers

Now, three years later, he's facing the same problem; only two weeks in his own cafe at the Holt shops and more often than not the sold out sign goes up before he knows it.

His Hungry Brown Cow brownie cookies are a welcome staple at pop-ups and the Capital Region Farmers Market and now he's flipping burgers as well.

"It's a weird combination I know, brownies and burgers, but it's working," says Cowie, making up a Big Easy burger for someone's breakfast while we conduct the interview.

He had been baking the cookies out of his home kitchen for the three years and the cafe all started with the search for a bigger kitchen. He found one at the Holt shops, the rent was pretty cheap, and it had this little storeroom at the front.

"So I thought why not see if we can run a cafe while we're at it, come in, get a burger, a coffee, a sweet treat to take back to work and we've been run off our feet," Cowie says.

Opening hours are from 7am until 3pm, Tuesday to Thursday. On Fridays, there's a morning stint as well, and just last week he tried Friday nights, from four until 7pm "and we got slammed". Saturday's run from 8am until 2pm.

Cowie is a former high school cooking teacher who initially started making the brownies as a side hustle. He puts their success down to the care he puts into the flavours and the fact that people seem to appreciate a handmade artisan product.

"The big thing about the brownies is that they're rich, if you put in a filling that is sweet, it's just too much," he says.

"I make sure the flavour in the middle, the mousse, it just balances it out.

"With the honeycomb I'll slightly burn it, so you've got that slightly bitter flavour that works with the richness of the cookie."

It's a highlight of the week when Cowie posts his upcoming cookie flavours: cookies and cream, coconut rough, salted caramel, Nutella cheesecake, honeycomb butterscotch ...

And he's applied the same principles to the burgers as well. He's using Three Mills milk buns, condiments such as the jalapeno and lime aioli and onion jams are all housemade.

Four combinations are available, the Big Easy, a Take it Sleezy cheeseburger, the Farmyard with the lot and the Fryar Tuck, a fried chicken burger, which Cowie says he has a soft spot for. He's toying with the idea of having a regular special to allow him to play with some more flavours.

There's Black Mountain coffee, made with Little Big Dairy Co. milk, cute little cans of Billson's classic sodas out of Beechworth. Cowie says it's important to support the little guys doing big things.

"COVID hit a lot of people hard, I was kind of lucky in that while I lost all the events like The Forage and the pop-ups, the markets got busier as people were looking for ways to support local, support small businesses.

"It's been great seeing people support businesses in their suburbs, in their neighbourhoods, and I wanted to do that here.

"We spent a lot of time getting the front of the shop right, it looks bright and fresh and fun.

"The locals are saying they've never seen so many people at the shops, never seen people sitting out there on those chairs. It's been great."