Chatting About Fences, While in the Oven…

glass pool fencesCustomer service tip: chat, but not TOO much. That’s especially applicable to me, because I’m baking goodies for the enjoyment of all café patrons, and I can’t be loitering around stuck in a conversation while my vol-au-vents are going from crispy and delicious to charred rubbish. It’s a waiting game, but also one of timing.

I’m mostly reiterating this to myself, because I had a bit of a disaster yesterday. I understand that Johnny’s is the kind of environment where everyone feels at home, and that’s really lovely, but it does make people chatty and when someone doesn’t leave you any breaks to slip away…well, disaster. We had a lady in this morning who does official inspections of Melbourne pool fencing to make sure it’s up to standard, all the children are safe, etc. I don’t know if she’s terribly lonely or just the type who loves to talk about her work, but I got my ear talked off for a good twenty minutes on how she visited a home that morning and they’d painted all over the fence so you couldn’t see inside. I could really see her point, though; that’s just not on. These folks had children as well, so…well, all pool fencing is made to see THROUGH. No point if you’re blocking the view.

So that happened. Half of my brain was in the kitchen, thinking about the gingerbread family that should’ve been brown and crispy, but I just couldn’t escape. There’s so much to learn about pool fencing, clearly! Anyway, I lost track of time, finally managed to excuse myself and returned to find smoke leaking from the oven. My gingerbread family came out looking like they’d been in a horrible house fire, and nobody had any gingerbread that day. Oh, I just HATE messing up a bake! I learned plenty about Melbourne’s glass pool fencing industry, to be sure, but in the end I’d rather have some well-baked gingerbread men. That’s my job, after all.

-Olga

Watching Sport, Don’t Tell the Wife

TV antennaDon’t tell the wife, but I’m mostly here to watch sport. Yeah, people usually go to the pub for that, but if I come home smelling of alcohol than Bessie will have my hide. She absolutely hates it when I’m out drinking with the mates, even if I don’t do any drinking myself! Johnny’s has all the TV channels, there are a few tables free that face the screen and so he knows now that I’m there for one thing only. It’s shameful, I know. I keep having to tell Bessie that I’m meeting with clients, which isn’t even a real thing I do in my job.

It’s my fault for marrying an aggressive Luddite, I guess. We had a short relationship, an even shorter engagement and then suddenly she’s coming out with all this stuff about technology ruining the world, and how she wants to go to the offices of all the antenna installation places in Melbourne and cover them in angry leaflets. That was a bit far for me. Some of my best workmates started in the antenna industry and they’re good blokes. No one really deserves that many leaflets shoved in their letterbox!

And of course, we can’t have a TV at home. Bessie barely even uses the stove and she’s taped up all the power outlets. So yeah, we’re living in the dark ages. The only release I get is when I’m out and about without her…so basically, just work. With the amount I’m ‘working’ now you’d think I was a CEO with an evening job, but I spend a lot of time at the café. All the sports channels, and Johnny just listens, you know? He’s always got an ear for my problems, even when he’s in a rush and making six double-foam cappuccinos with different amounts of sugar and textured chocolate dusting. Mostly I just drink tea. Keeps it simple.

Maybe I’ll meet some nice girl in here involved in the Melbourne TV antenna industry. Agh, shouldn’t talk like that…

-Edd

Intense Clown Party Stress!

Bentleigh East indoor play centresThis is where I come to recover. This café is my only sanctuary, or rather…it feels that way sometimes. Not that I hate my job or anything, but I DO need places to recharge. Children, seriously. Children are wonderful gifts who bring so much joy, and so, SO very much exhaustion. In some ways I think I have it even harder than parents, because I’m the one they call on when they want their kids to be entertained. Throw in the fact that apparently clowns are a dying breed and you have the perfect storm of feeling underappreciated and stressed out, every day.

The job comes with perks, sure. Kids are great, when they’re behaving and not trying to pull your nose off. I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of indoor play centres. Canberra, Strathclide, Bentleigh…I’m basically the go-to person in my group of friends for intel on how to keep your kids happy and entertained, especially if that place also offers tea, coffee and a sit-down. I guess that’s the good thing about play centres. You can let your kids run loose and they make their own entertainment while you supervise. Some parents don’t even do that much, to be honest…

I’ve seen a lot, as a clown. I’ve had parents who drop off their kids and just leave me with the lot of them, as if their duties as parents are official over the moment I walk in the room. Um, no. I dress up and entertain the children I’m not a legal guardian! Balloon animal creation skills do not qualify someone for a parenthood, unfortunately. Although my future kids will probably love them. And then there are the parents who do nothing to stop the children kicking me and trying to set fire to my wig.

So I need this place. Here I’m not a clown, dashing around Bentleigh East indoor play centres and pouring out my energy in song and dance. Here I’m just ordinary Joe, enjoying a good coffee and not talking to anyone. The best.

-Joe

This Crazy, Inspirational Family

arborist melbourneI really like Johnny, don’t get me wrong, but his family is weird. Every time I come to the café, it’s like I’ve walked into a wacky sitcom where some foreign people who don’t understand Aussie culture try to run a business, and it ends in hilarious, episodic disaster every time. Johnny is the lovable everyman who gets along with everyone and has to defuse the situation, the cook is the matron who turns into a tyrant when people don’t do things her way, the shop assistant is the snarky, socially-active drama queen and…well, Johnny’s dad just keeps trying to chop down the trees out the front. He used to work for a arborist in Melbourne somewhere? Old habits must die hard, but more on that later. I guess I’m just one of those patrons who always hangs around in the background and occasionally gets to react to something. Maybe a line if I’m really lucky.

Argh, sorry…I’m doing that thing where I mix work and leisure. I just finished working on Week of Our Lives, and I’ve moved onto what I think is going to be the next big hit comedy: Friendly Misfits. It’s about a bunch of people who are all around each other’s homes all the time, or hanging out in a coffee shop very much like this one and getting themselves into hilarious scrapes. And now I just can’t detach myself; I come to the café to relax, but I start casting everyone in the show and I can’t stop. You’ve got the mother, who cares a lot but shows it in really strange ways, like buying an official café cat. The foreign cousin who’s a total ladies’ man with insecurity issues. It all just falls into place and if nothing else, I’m getting a load of inspiration. Seriously, this is great material.

The father is definitely getting worked in, somehow…a well-meaning member of the Melbourne tree stump removal industry who can’t let his old job go. It’s like tree lopping, but…it’s stump removal.

-Natalie

Finding Fishing Friends

stainless steel fabricationAt some point I realised that I wasn’t going to make any friends just by sitting at home and wishing that I had some. I don’t get out all that much any more, not since Martha passed on, but it finally got too much the other day. I’m still hale and hearty, I still go for hikes every weekend, so I can’t just let myself fade away socially! Good thing Johnny’s Café opened recently, otherwise I probably would’ve had to drive a good twenty minutes or so just to find the nearest decent coffee joint. It would’ve been that, or trying to chat up that lady in the wool shop every day. She might be my type, I’m really not sure.

So I lumbered in, had a good chat to Johnny- seen him around a bit, but never chatted to him until now- and tried to see if any old fellows my age were interested in chatting about fishing rod holders and hook size variations. It’s pushing my luck a bit, I know…Martha always just tolerated my fishing habit when she was alive, never saying anything (because she was an absolute gem) but making it clear that she’d rather have a couple of friends over while I’m out on my boat. At least back then I could come home to her, even if I never tried to talk to her about snapper racks and such. Now I’d just really like some conversation. And if it can be on the subject of fishing, so be it!

I don’t just want to go and brazenly ask Johnny if any of the people who come in here like fishing. Browsing the online guestbook, it looks as if I’m not going to find what I’m looking for, at least not so far. Though not everyone has signed, I suppose. Maybe I just need to find a new hobby. Stop following the latest trends in marine stainless steel fabrication in Melbourne and start pursuing something else, though. Bridge, or bingo, or…skydiving. Don’t think I will, though. I’ll keep coming along to the café anyway, because you never know. Also, great coffee!

-Fergus