Missives From the War on Cafes
- Alessandro Pennini
- Jun 3, 2016
- 2 min read
“It's really cool! Exposed brick walls. Re purposed wood. Mason jars. Wooden plates”
You’d be forgiven for thinking there’s been a Mad Max style apocalypse. No, it’s only another ‘trendy’ café, that appears one day in the inner city and all your friends start raving about. And frankly, one of these cafes would be enough. I could accept maybe two or three of these places but it seems as Melbourne is increasingly redeveloped and gentrified, these places just keep popping up.
And honestly, it has to stop.
Every time I've gone to one of these places, I've been wooed with premise of gourmet food at street food prices and gotten something so ordinary, it doesn't even earn a mention. You have to wait in line for ages for a seat, a seat somewhere in the cramped, re-purposed interior.
Everything is suitably expensive because everything is ‘locally grown’ and ‘gourmet’. I'm paying how much for a fucking avocado now? Where's this bacon from, the moon?
The staff have to be suitably cool as well: the guys will be bearded and the girls will have tattoos and open the ordering with a casual “What can I get you guys?”. And every guy always thinks they have a chance with this girl. Leave her alone, she’s trying to work.
There are places with this aesthetic that work, but how do you tell the good from the bad?
My grandmother ate at one of these hipster cafes recently and she dismissed the entire sordid affair with a wave of her hand. She’s an old Italian nonna and she looked down in disdain and gave her verdict:
“Oh my god, no paint on the walls, you sit-a at a bench, very small. We used to do that during the war”
She’s talking about World War II. In 1944. It’s the year 2016 and we’re sitting around drinking out of mason jars and eating off slabs of wood like animals? I know the economy isn't great but seriously now, what happened? Did something go wrong?
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