Buying flowers for the cafe

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spring bulbsI’ve been in the hospo business for about twenty years now and I’ve tried a bunch of different decorating techniques. In the nineties when everything was sleek and shiny, I had a trim little bar and then in the early 21st century when retro was coming back in fashion I had a garages style restaurant. These days, the bohemian style seems to be in. you can slap any bits of furniture together and have successful décor.

Throughout the years I’ve also experimented with greenery and now I think I’ll get back into it. I’m going to buy spring flowering bulbs from this online retailer and start planting again. They’re going to make the cafe look very sweet. People also don’t realise that going edible plants and herbs works magic for your cafe. Put them in the window sill or at the front and allow your customers to pick from them. They like that because it’s interactive and quaint. Especially in Melbourne where quaintness and cafe culture go hand in hand. Add a pinch of mint to your chocolate cheese cake or a sprig of lemongrass to your herbal tea.

As far as decorative plants go, I’m thinking I’ll go with daffodils. It’s not hard to find daffodil for sale and yet here aren’t many beautiful flowers featured around in cafes. I know that as soon as I get mine started everyone else is going to start jumping on the bandwagon. That’s the only bad thing. As soon as everyone has flowers in their cafe it’s not going to be my unique gimmick anymore and I’ll have to think of something else. Maybe I’ll go the opposite and start growing weeds. I’ll use edible and flowering weeds which can actually be quite attractive. You’ve just got to know what to get.

Timber windows and cheesecake

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timber window replacementsLast time I visited Johnny’s cafe I decided to treat myself to a slice of the mars bar cheesecake, it was absolutely delicious and I highly recommend it to anyone. However, I recommend you find a quiet corner in which to eat it as I stupidly decided to sit on the communal table. I had assumed the young girl next to me was a functioning adult but how silly I was. Just as I took my first delicious bite she started yammering away on her mobile about complete nonsense in an incredibly irritating shrill voice. From what I could understand she was pretty upset that her selfish parents had arranged for some timber window repairs in Melbourne. Apparently they had not taken into account that she had planned to have friends over and their window repairs would not go down well with the crew. Aside from how entitled and quite frankly, stupid she sounded, the way in which she spoke was so grating I could barely enjoy my cheesecake. She blabbered on for about twenty minutes about the timber window repairs and how she felt they were unnecessary, she didn’t even like the windows in the first place. I had half a mind to tell her she should appreciate her parents not just putting, but repairing, a roof over her head but if there’s one thing I know about young people, they don’t listen to old people. I suppose something useful did come of my afternoon at the cafe, later that day a dear friend of mine told me she was planning on doing some home renovations and did I know anyone who could supply timber windows in Melbourne. After I was done laughing I passed on the name that was emblazoned on my brain from the shrill young girl saying it over and over again at Johnny’s cafe.

Suddenly a Roof Expert, Don’t Ask

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roof tile repairsI love being one of the first to try this place. Johnny’s only opened…what, a month ago? And I was one of the first customers on the first day. This suburb was a cultural and coffee dead zone, unless you wanted to get it from a machine at the supermarket, so I can’t tell you how relieved I am to have something like this here. I NEED to work in public places, which people think is made because I work from home for a company in Hungary. Work in your pyjamas all the time! Nope…I need the vibe. And Johnny’s has it all, mostly.

I do have a few suggestions. And just last week I was writing on the benefits of having a roof tile repair expert from Melbourne come and check out your roofing situation, because people have been dealing with serious injuries from loose tiles, especially in storm season. This place has some nice timber beams inside, but I noticed on the path outside that there are loose tiles smashed on the floor. It might not be so popular if someone was heading in for their caffeine fix and got clocked on the noggin. Of course, you’ve got Irma’s Wool Supplies and that model plane place on either side, so it could easily be their problem. But still, roof tile restoration. It’s where it’s at. I bet the roof tiles on here are brand new.

I learn a lot of weird stuff from my writing. Just last week I was writing an article on mixing your own makeup, even though I’ve never worn makeup (except for that one school play, where everyone wore it). I also wrote an expose on why Thomas Edison wasn’t the true inventor of the lightbulb, when I’m not usually into history. This job takes me to strange, exciting places, I go on a bit of a knowledge bender for a week…and this week, it’s roof tiles. I’m practically an expert on proper roof tile restoration practices around Melbourne, so maybe I can help out my favourite café. Until I start writing on ballet techniques, or something.

-Rowan

A Bundle of Family Business

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granny flatI guess this place has a nice bit of an airy feel. And by that I mean it’s, like…I don’t know, nice and airy, whatever. Like you’re outside. All the pot plants really do help to create that illusion, or whatever.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in here, but that’s less to do with the coffee (which is pretty great, I’ll admit) and more to do with how I don’t want to be around my relatives. When they’re not discussing the family business AGAIN, they’re at each other’s throats, probably in relation to the family business. I miss my barns. Oh, and then we tried appeasing grandmother by building her a granny flat. Building in Tamworth requires permits, you know. We didn’t just knock a cubby-house together and call it a day, because we actually care about our elderly relative’s well-being. But then she acts like we’re uprooting her to the ends of the Earth, and rants about how she doesn’t want to leave Melbourne because it’s the centre of culture. Her words, not mine! And then we ask her exactly how she benefits from all this ‘culture’, and Granny doesn’t know because she hasn’t gone to see a play since the 70’s when Cads first started showing. I think it put her off forever.

So now we have an empty granny flat that is probably going to be turned into a storage house. I TOLD everyone that Granny wouldn’t want to move all the way to Tamworth. But they’re all caught up with this family business rubbish. I certainly won’t be taking it on; my brother is the businessman of the family. I want them to leave me alone, they won’t, and so I’m sitting here in the coffee shop, staring out the window at the bleak weather and pretending I have homework. Maybe we can convert the flat into a teenage retreat. Tamworth is ALL about teenagers and retreating, probably.

-Alison

Coffees and dry needling- a match made in heaven

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dry needling coursesUntil I found Johnny’s Cafe, I was not doing well at school. To be honest with you, I think I was 
decaffeinated. One day, I’d just come out of class after receiving exam dire results and ventured into Johnny’s out of desperation. Well, it was too early for the bars to be open so I thought I’d drown my sorrows in a cup of chai. People think that vocational studies are easy but they’re not, especially not dry needling courses. NZ has a few good manual therapy colleges that demand rigorous training from the students.

Anyway, when I got into the cafe I met Johnny who’s a huge coffee nut. He talked me out of ordering the chai because he wanted me to try his amazing coffee. He considers himself a top notch barista and I have to say that he doesn’t fall short of the mark. I’ve never been huge on coffee but after tasting Johnny’s work I’ve been hooked. IT was bitter without being burnt, and yet sweet enough to require no sugar. Now that’s what I call masterful coffee making.

Ever since that first hit of caffeine, my trigger point dry needling has improved. I can focus much better on my studies and my grades has short through the roof. I’m top of the class now and I’ve never been top of anything! Sadly I’m going to have to interrupt my studies to move to Adelaide for work. I wonder if there are dry needling course based in Adelaide because I’m not far from getting my certificate no I don’t want to delay my progress for too long. When I get my qualification I’m going to open shop in my garage. Until then ,Johnny has been recommending my to some of his regulars which has been earning me a bit of cash. I charge them less because I’m a student and they don’t seem to mind. In fact some have even commented that I’m better than the last person they saw even though I charge half the price.

Trent’s return

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ute canopyAlright so Trent, the guy that Johnny on-and-off employs to go down to the market and bring back some amazing fresh produce, was in again this morning and oh my goodness I’d completely forgotten what a git he is. Aside from the fact that he’s forever trying to hit on me and the rest of the waitresses in the creepiest ways imaginable, he’s just generally really irritating. He talks and talks and talks and talks and none of it is ever even mildly interesting, except for when he’s asking to take a ton of time off for some far fetched reason. I think last time it was because of his dream to become a professional skydiving instructor – I mean honestly.

Anyway, thankfully this morning he wasn’t so much trying out his “smooth moves” as boring us to tears with talk of the amazing aluminium ute canopies from Melbourne he’s got his hands on for his utes. I mean, really, I didn’t even know what a freaking ute canopy was until this morning and, looking back, that was a better time. It’s not even like I was listening, it was more that if you hear something repetitively, your subconscious can’t help but take a bit of it to heart. It just sort of seeps in whether you want it to or not, and between talk of those utes canopies and these aluminium toolboxes he got from the same place in Melbourne, I’ve learnt more than I ever wanted to about the subject.

Not to mention the fact that being preached at is very distracting when you’re actually trying to work. All I wanted to do was whirl around and scream ‘SHUT UP I’M TRYING TO WORK’ but the only thing that would have achieved would have been to scare the customers. I just can’t wait until he realises he hates real work and leaves again.

Just Needs a Good Bit of Tree Removal

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stump removalIt’s looking pretty good around here. I never even knew Johnny had any flair for business, since his mother and I certainly don’t, but he’s made it work anyway! Previously, the closest I’ve ever come to owning a business is when we used to live in Brisbane and sometimes the boss would leave me in charge when he went away. I’ll admit, sometimes that didn’t involve all that much. We had a job, we got on with it. I mostly just inspected the jobs when we were done. We were Brisbane’s best tree removal people; we knew the trade and there wasn’t much to really direct! Though I suppose there was paperwork, which I did a little bit of.

Still, it wasn’t quite what Johnny’s managed to set up here. Maybe he had the talents for business, making coffee and interior design all along, and we should’ve encouraged him a bit more when he was much younger. Well, we DID tell him to follow his dreams, so I suppose that part worked. Could maybe use some trees being uprooted around the front, though…just saying. They’ve already got a nice tree-lined walkway leading inm but what if there were FEWER trees? The last thing to really round off the place is an asphalt driveway, or just a pathway, tree-free, or just with some of the nice ones left. That way people know they’re walking into something important! That’s what all our customers used to say up in Brisbane: a clear walkway completes a place, like a front door or a garden gnome, or perhaps a piece of freshly-cut grass. Not that I’m saying the café needs garden gnomes…that’d be a bit odd. But you understand my meaning: the path out there needs a good bit of stump grinding, for that clean look.

I know what Johnny will say. I’m retired, it’ll put my back out, I don’t have the equipment, the smell of chainsaw fumes causing my palpitations and is possibly the reason I just spent five months in hospital before retiring…but this is something I’d like to do to make the café complete. I used to do Brisbane’s esteemed land clearing for eighteen hours a day! I can tackle one little path…

-Jamie

Rosa from Bolivia

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conference centresWhile I love the ability to prepare food for people the way I love to eat it, and making a good cup of coffee for someone’s first sip of the day, by far the best part of my job is all the amazing people I am blessed enough to meet through my trade. Like I’ve said a thousand times before and will continue to say here again, I just love talking to people! And in my line of work, some of the people I have the pleasure of talking to are truly inspirational.

Take Rosa for example. Sitting at table 23 every morning at exactly 9 o’clock, Rosa has become a favourite of mine over the last several months. A travel blogger from Bolivia, she keeps me in the loop about her exploits around our country over her morning short macchiato. While I’ve managed to discover that she is, in fact, a Bolivian national, Rosa is always far happier talking about her work. Just this morning, for instance, we had a very relaxed conversation where she told me about the conference centres she’d inspected on behalf of the freelance writing agency she works for. All she wanted to talk about was the amazing places she’d been to, particularly Lorne, a small town on the Great Ocean Road. Rosa just simply couldn’t stop raving about Lorne, country Victoria, and the accommodation she stayed at. All my efforts to change the subject away from Victoria to her travels elsewhere in the world were, as usual, entirely in vain. She’s a very forceful woman, that Rosa. She steers the conversation where she wants to, with no thought of the will or interest of others. Regardless of what it is exactly she’s been through, I know that she’s suffered a lot. It’s truly wonderful to see her here, such a strong and confident young woman!

Makeup for Just Looking Great

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specialist makeup

Hey, hi, how you going…yep, those phrases are my life now. That, and ‘what sort of coffee would you like?’ after people come up to the counter and say they’d like a coffee. Ha ha, that’s great, friend. But it’s not 1953 any more. There are varieties. You have choice, isn’t that great?

Ugh, really. Customer service is the pits, but at least I’m well-trained in putting on a smile and my makeup is always flawless. That’s where I’m heading: right up the big leagues of stage and TV. Once I get my diploma of specialist makeup, that’s me gone. Yep, see ya, bye bye, I’m off to make big bucks! Not in Hollywood, because I’m not completely stupid. No, I know I have to work my way up the ranks. That’s why I have this dumb job for now.

In a way, it really helps. While I’m doing my beauty course, I have to be well-practised in making people look like anything. So when I roll out of bed for an early shift (this place opens at 6am!) and I’ve been up until 3am doing wild stuff because I’m young, it’s a real challenge of my skills as to whether I can make myself look like a real, living human. Mostly I manage it, because I’m just that good. So yeah, not even finished the course and already it’s coming in handy! I knew it would. Most of the reason I’m doing it for the big name recognition and the amount of pay you get once you make it really big, though being able to look good without any effort? Well, I’ve always been pretty good at that anyway. I could use some sharpening, though.

So yeah, come get some coffee. Hopefully you’ll be distracted by how I’ve done my eyeliner or my foundation, so I won’t have to smile. You learn that kind of thing in a diploma in beauty therapy.

-Rose

This Place, Parties and Functions

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Melbourne party venueHave you ever thought of hiring out this place for private functions? I just think it’d be a great idea, what with everything being so…well, you know. The decor is nice, and shoving all the tables to one side would give you a great little bit of space to do whatever with. And in this area of Melbourne? You’ve pretty much got the monopoly. Heck, I didn’t even think that they’d even have a nice cafe, but here we are. I’m sitting in it right now. Just look at that, eh?

So anyway, these private function rooms. Most are in the Melbourne CBD, at least the really nice ones, for what I’ve seen at our company events. That’s nice and all, because…well, the CBD is central. That’s why they call it that. The Central Business District. Very convenient, all there in the title. But what if you didn’t want something quite so central? Like, way out here, for instance. People wouldn’t have to travel quite so much, you have the nice wooden beams and then there’s a coffee machine right there, so if people wanted coffee…someone could make them a coffee. Not that many people are into coffee in the evenings, you know? It’s a time for tea, since tea has the same amount of caffeine but you don’t actually consume the beans like in coffee (and they’re leaves) so it’s not so bad. Basically, all you’d need are some really good tea leaves and you’re set, though some canapes and general finger food wouldn’t go awry. Maybe a really decent sound system, a proper set of speakers…and yep, one of Melbourne’s greatest party venues is all set up, right here, ready to go! All the way out here, no one would have to travel. And then you could open after hour, and everyone would think it was just the best. Or hey, how about making it a nightclub? People love nightclubs. Especially nightclubs with really great coffee.

-Deon