My oh my! Long shot pays off for ambitious cafe owners
A simple fitout signals an easy welcome at Good Measure bar and cafe in Carlton. Photo: Aaron Puls

My oh my! Long shot pays off for ambitious cafe owners

It was a strong expression – espresson? – of faith in Melbourne’s indomitable coffee culture that, during last year’s seemingly endless lockdowns, the owners of two inner-city cafes invested big bucks and engaged architects We Are Humble to individualise bricks and mortar venues they don’t own.

Good Measure took up digs in Lygon Street, Carlton, and My Oh My doubled its floor space on Swan Street, Richmond, by taking over a next-door shop deserted during the COVID retail apocalypse.

My Oh My owner Adam Zeineddine reckons he put “just under $1 million” into the revamp and sideways expansion of his cafe in an exceptionally beautiful three-storey boom-style building on Swan – even though reopening the existing 1880s arches in the dividing wall means he now pays rent to two different landlords.

Why, when his part of Richmond – or, more correctly, the millennial tech-head pocket of Cremorne – was all but deserted during the lockdowns, did he see sense in engaging architects and lavishing the place with oak and a high-key paint job?

Good_Measure_can_take_full_advantage_of_inner_city_morning_sun._Photo_Aaron_Pul_gtrdmh
Good Measure can take full advantage of the morning sun. Photo: Aaron Pul

Because, he says, his cafe had been running well for three years “and we wanted to step up a couple of levels – when the [hairdresser] neighbours left, I decided that was the opportunity”.

The renovations started in January 2021, and even though the place was ready to re-open for breakfast and lunch by that June – with offerings like $20 Wagyu burgers – there were more months of limited indoor seating to endure.

Meanwhile, over in another historic shop on Carlton’s Lygon Street, which still has a score of cobwebbed premises up for lease, the partnership of three that set up Good Measure also seized a break to establish a local hangout they’d been planning.

Mitch Miller says he and partners Brandon Jo and Max Allison had their eyes on a shopfront that had been empty for three years, “and in a beautiful and peaceful part of the street, the rent was so cheap it made sense to us”.

Miller says that since the cafe and cocktail bar opened this year, “many sweating landlords have come in and asked us to do another one”. The trio might consider it, but first are planning to expand upstairs.

The_arches_existed_in_the_original_wall_and_were_reopened_to_reunite_two_separate_shops._Photo_Peter_Clarke_1_migruk
My Oh My's arches existed in the original wall and were reopened to reunite two separate shops. Photo: Peter Clarke

When the lockdowns did finally abate, Melbourne’s retail and hospitality strips looked pretty sad and empty. But with green-shoot openings such as specialist cafes demonstrating optimism in the future of Australia’s annual $3 billion coffee fixation (or roughly 1.92 kilograms per head per year), and with Melbourne’s branding as one of the world’s top coffee cities, there is definitely new life for the old streets yet.

Melbourne’s main coffee-fix hours are in the mornings, and both of these cafes are perfectly oriented to be flooded with sun.

My Oh My has many pavement tables and even some circular wooden seating encircling the fluted veranda posts. Good Measure has simple wooden benches along the walls and front window and a policy of inviting patrons to come in, sit down over their computers and work for as long as they want.

Miller says Good Measure was set up “on a budget” to suggest a home from home – a community lounge, albeit with a lightly Japanese aesthetic.

“It’s a blessing that we’ve immediately been so busy,” he adds.

Kim Lai and Tom Orton, principals of We Are Humble, say the differences between the two venues they completed during lockdown – one high-key gorgeous, the other unpretentious – indicate how hospitality venues now need to signal distinction to their patrons.

“The cookie-cutter thing”, Lai says, “is not what these spaces will be about in the future. It’s about designing for the operators and the neighbourhood.”

Orton says it is key for people to “feel a certain level of authenticity around them”.

“Post-COVID, it’s vital to have a neighbourhood ingredient and authenticity in the [operators] who are the face of them.”

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Originally a drapery emporium, My Oh My is one of the green-shoot cafe venues appearing in Melbourne. Photo: Peter Clarke

The arch-and-circle theme of My Oh My, which even extends to pavement barricades, was a no-brainer for the team.

“We were trying to take elements of the existing building and link it to the shop’s branding,” Orton says. The lush red-on-ochre colourway “was us taking our cue from the facade and the beautiful terracotta red”.

The owner, he says, was willing to spend on high design “because if you look temporary or budget, you feel temporary”.

Good Measure, however, has a different vibe. “What we were creating for them was the bones so that they could fill it in with plants and furniture,” Lai says.  With the owners doing the painting and some of the extra carpentry themselves, “it already has the feel of one of those spaces that have been there for a while”.

With the home-from-home ambience, she says “the boys have already really endeared themselves to the community – what they’ve done is a really nice addition to the street”.

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