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7 WAYS YOU SHOULD FEEL INADAQUATE IN A MELBOURNE CAFE
10:27 Jun 26 2019 Times Read: 1,034
Seven ways you should be feeling inadequate in Melbourne’s trendy cafes
What’s the point in running a trendy Melbourne cafe if you can’t make your customers feel inadequate with syringes full of jam and an obsession with sparkling water? Here are all the ways you should be feeling unworthy while sitting in your local cafe.
Mitchell Toy, Herald Sun
Subscriber only
|
June 26, 2019 8:30am
Melbourne’s cafes need to stay on the cutting edge by inventing new ways to make you feel inadequate.
Melbourne’s cafes need to stay on the cutting edge by inventing new ways to make you feel inadequate.
The hospitality industry is tough, and in a city as trendy as Melbourne it’s hard to stay on top.
Being cash only and having exposed brick doesn’t cut it anymore. If you really want to be trendy you’ve got to make your customers feel truly unworthy.
Here are seven tips for maximising the trendiness of your Melbourne brunch spot.
TAP SHAMING WORKS
“Sparkling water? Or is tap OK?”
You might as well just say, “Will you have sparkling water like an evolved person or will you drink it out of a tap like a domesticated rat?”
Never mind Melbourne tap water being the highest quality drinking water in the world.
If your customers aren’t paying extra for lightly aerated mineral water, they’re clearly not up to scratch.
Tap shaming works, and you should push it hard.
Shame on you for wanting filthy tap water instead of proper, aerated water.
SHOW THEM WHO’S THE EXPERT
To complete the brunch experience, the customer needs to feel stupid at least three times.
Once might be the tap shaming.
Then you can chuck in a couple of unpronounceable items on the menu and wait until they try and say them while you crouch in the bullrush waiting with a swift correction to make them feel dumb.
If they order bacon, ask them how they’d like it cooked.
If they shrug and say “Crispy?” just laugh and say, “Maybe leave it up to the chef”.
We’re the experts here, people.
Never forget it.
IT’S NEVER EGGS ON TOAST
Eggs on toast are eaten by boring people in the suburbs.
People like your customers.
You must never admit to selling eggs on toast, at least, it must never be called that.
You do poached on multigrain, chilli scramble on rye, Holy hollandaise or Madame Florentine.
You might admit to making an omelette so long as it’s made clear it’s no ordinary omelette because it’s been run over by a Vespa or something.
But “eggs on toast” will wake the customer up to the idea they could stay at home and make this same meal in their own kitchen.
Heaven forbid.
Trendy-eggs: It’s never just eggs on toast.
TWO TABLES PER SQUARE METRE
In places such as Macau, population density is so extreme that you can hardly open a door for someone without squashing another.
Your floor plan should make south east Asia look like Ballarat.
Twelve centimetres between tables it all that’s needed.
Three people on a table the size of a Melways is fine.
Lining them up on stools on a bar that is barely wide enough to hold an entree plate is to be encouraged.
Choking the footpath out the front with too many chairs, forcing dogs and strollers to clog the whole street is best practice.
If these people wanted space they would have gone to the park.
No point having a spacious floor plan. Pack them in like a live export.
THE BUSYNESS IS THEIR FAULT
Being fashionably late with food is a great Melbourne tradition and it is widely considered rude if the meal shows up within half an hour.
Keep your customers on their toes by sometimes forgetting to put the order through and making them ask for it again.
This is usually achievable by making sure you put on too few staff, forcing them to exhaust themselves by covering too many of your packed-in tables.
If your customers make an issue of this, blame them.
“We’re busy” is usually enough, with a look that suggests you wouldn’t be as busy if they hadn’t shown up.
CHUCK A SYRINGE IN IT
The Melbourne brunch experience shouldn’t be relaxing.
Far from it. The diners need to be challenged psychologically if the whole experience is to be worth it.
You can start by serving tea in a science beaker, as if it isn’t tea at all.
Using squid ink to present ordinary ingredients as unnaturally black is also a great step, and a roll of the eyes is mandatory if they seem apprehensive.
But the best and most widely successful way of unsettling brunch eaters is putting a big plastic syringe in their food.
Maybe it’s full of jam for a doughnut or gravy for a potato hash or whatever.
The simple delight of eating will soon be obfuscated by the spectre of medical procedures or drug use.
Mission complete.
Trendy-syringe: If there’s no syringe, it’s not trendy enough.
THE CHARACTERS IN MELBOURNE PUBS
PARENTS YOU’LL MEET AT JUNIOR SPORTS
NO VOWELS, NO WORRIES
Coming up with a suitably alluring name for your eatery can be a real challenge.
Just remember vowels aren’t essential.
If you’re thinking of calling the place “Flower”, why not just go with “FLWR”?
If you are going with vowels, be sure to add “haus” to the end.
If your customers trust a German to make a sound system, they’ll trust them to cook some eggs on toast.
But you don’t do eggs on toast.
If all else fails, put “Wolf” in the name and a wolf on your logo and you’re set.
I DIDNT WRITE THIS, THIS COMED FROM THE HERALD SUN.ONE OF THE MANY DIGITAL NEWSPAPERS I SUBSCIBE TO.
THE 8 KINDS OF PARENTS YOU WILL MEET AT JUNIOR SPORTS
10:37 Jun 18 2019 Times Read: 1,067
I DIDNT WRITE THIS, IT COME FROM ONE OF THE MANY DIGITAL NEWSPAPERS I SUBSCRIBE TO THE HERALD SUN.
BEST OF MELBOURNE
The eight types of parents you meet at junior sport
You can find them every weekend across Melbourne, from the dad at war with the coach, to the sidelines gossip posse and the team manager who takes on the thankless role nobody else wants. These are the parents of junior sport.
Mitchell Toy, Herald Sun
Subscriber only
Meet some of the people you find at junior sports games
The winter sports season is underway and children everywhere are being loaded into people movers by parents whose weekends used to be very different.
Here are eight sideline characters you are likely to meet at junior sport.
ONE-MAN CHEERSQUAD
It’s great to get into the spirit and cheer on your team, but not the entire time and not at 150 decibels.
This parent, who is either profoundly deaf or wants everyone else to be, doesn’t care he’s the only one making noise.
Likely to even yell congratulations for an efficient throw back to the centre circle or a guzzle of Powerade at half time, not a second of play escapes his loud but positive appraisal and forceful applause.
When he’s not at junior sport, he’s probably wandering the streets, cheering on neighbours who are whipper snipping their nature strips.
How the anti coach view themselves, and how everybody else views them.
ANTI COACH
Like a psych patient who believes he’s Napoleon, this parent apparently believes they are the one true coach.
This often brings them into conflict with the real coach, whose game plans and priorities are ignored by the anti-coach’s spout of misinformation.
Often seen screaming instructions from near the shed and even daring to call unauthorised interchanges, the anti-coach even treads dangerously close to the halftime huddle and whispers corrupting commands into the ears of players who aren’t sure who to listen to.
The anti-coach is usually someone who used to be the coach and is having trouble not being the coach anymore.
GOSS SQUAD
While the kids trade tackles on the field, this clique of nosy parents stand around a pentagram on the grassy sideline to trade in salacious gossip.
Whose marriage is on the rocks? Which teachers at the local school are coupled with which? Which parents are anti-vaxxers? Which have had cosmetic surgery?
By the final siren they collect their secrets and pile into their SUVs where they retrospectively feign interest in the sports match, while keeping their eyes and ears peeled for more local goss to bring to the group next week, like a big cat hauling prey back to the pack.
The sausage tsar takes no notice of weather conditions.
SAUSAGE TSAR
An enterprising parent whose involvement in Rotary or philanthropic bent means the sport arena is never without the lingering aroma of slowly burning onion and undercooked snags.
With their clean record on food poisoning seemingly always under threat, the Tsar of sausages is either behind the barbecue or wandering the crowd with a charity pack of oversized Freddos even if it’s flooding with rain.
The weekend would be blander without them and their Esky full of soft drink cans.
PACKHORSE MANAGER
Now in her third season of regretting the decision to volunteer as team manager, this stressed parent rolls from mess to mess cleaning up after the failings of others.
Disputes about jumper clashes, legal threats over rolled ankles and parents getting banned for language that would get you court-martialled in the navy are all part of her weekend.
The thankless role is only recognised when the manager finally moves on when her child gets too old for the league and someone useless takes over.
Some light security is needed in case the brawler shows his face again.
BRAWLER
Wearing a string of stadium bans like a badge of honour, and also wearing a flannel shirt and shades, the brawler doesn’t care how many laws or noses need to get broken so he can live vicariously through his kid.
While the child probably prefers chemistry and doesn’t care about the match, their brawler dad is ready to contest every foul call or sideline rhetoric with his knuckles.
Rumours abound that he spent time on the inside for stabbing a teenage umpire, and a photo of his mug hangs on the wall of every sports venue admin office from Frankston to Werribee.
SNAIL
A slow-moving creature that carries its whole home wherever it goes.
Nothing more adequately describes the parents who set up on a grassy mound on the other side of the field with what seems to be a whole Ray’s Outdoors catalogue worth of gear.
Fold-up chairs, an Esky and Thermos are just the start.
A tent to guard from the wind, a miniature Weber that likely violates the rules of the establishment, a radio and foot rests are all in tow.
Early to arrive and the last to leave, the lethargic snails are always up for a chat and will offer up a sushi roll if you venture into their far-off realm.
The ghost — a melancholy spectre that appears only in Round One and the grand final.
GHOST
This parent’s name is on the contact list and their kid is registered to play, but nobody’s seen them since Round One.
Despite forking our for a uniform and registration fee, the ghost family has little interest in actually attending games.
That’s until the end of the season when the ghost kid makes a chilling apparition in the grand final if their team makes it that far, and shares in the spoils of victory at the barbecue afterwards if they win.
Their brand new playing gear doesn’t go unnoticed.
10 TYPES OF PEOPLE YOU WILL BUMP INTO MELBOURNE'S PUBS
10:25 Jun 18 2019 Times Read: 1,068
I DIDNT WRITE THIS, IT COMES FROM ONE OF THE MANY DIGITAL NEWSPAPERS I SUBSCRIBE TO CALLED THE HERALD SUN.
Ten types of people you’ll bump into in Melbourne’s pubs
From the round dodger who proves there is true evil in the world, to the fun police doing Dry July or No Friends November, here are the types of characters you’ll meet in Melbourne’s pubs.
Mitchell Toy, Herald Sun
Subscriber only
|
The types of characters you’ll likely bump into in a Melbourne pub.
Congregation around alcohol has been a human tradition since before Shaun Burgoyne was a boy.
A Melbourne watering hole is a real mixing pot of friends, foes, guides and villains.
Here are ten people you are likely to bump into at the pub.
TRAVEL AGENT
This person seems normal until they corner you and ask if you’ve got any trips planned.
Then it starts.
Have you ever swum with harp seals under the northern lights?
Ever sipped ancient wine beside the subterranean bones of St Peter in Rome?
You’ve never witnessed the grotesque but spiritually freeing funeral rites of the Ganges River?
Then clearly you’re nobody until you go and do all those things. Your homebody life is pointless and small.
That’s the message of the travel agent: You can’t possibly hope to be as conceited as me without going broke on travel bookings.
You would book a flight to Timbuktu if it meant getting out of this conversation.
Travel Agent: Getting stuck with the travel agent is like being trapped in a Triage ad.
ROUND DODGER
There is an unlegislated and ancient law about buying drinks that transcends cultures and generations.
Taking turns buying drinks for the whole group means fewer trips to the bar for each individual in an organised cycle built on trust.
But trust can be abused.
There is evil in the world.
This evil manifests in the round dodger.
This cunning gaslighter is the first to bring up unsettled debts that fall in their favour but the first to use mind tricks to cheat their way out of their round.
Often they choose to leave shortly before their round is due, claiming they have a train to catch.
Do not heed the round dodger’s promises to buy you a drink next time.
They never do.
PHANTOM
What a great afternoon or evening it’s been at the pub.
Now it’s time to move on to another venue for a few more drinks and laughs.
But wait.
As Count from Sesame Street would be well qualified to tell, there is one fewer person than before.
Where could they be? The rest room? The ATM?
No. The news is bad. The person you trusted to be a loyal member of your friendship group has been unmasked as a despicable phantom.
They have snuck away without saying goodbye and will not respond to texts or calls.
Prepare yourself for tomorrow’s strange excuses about why this happened.
Phantom: This socially inept ghoul always descends from the pub to the spirit world without saying goodbye.
SHOT MONSTER
Shots?
That one word has been a shiver looking for a spine to crawl down since uni.
It doesn’t matter if it’s 4pm on a Tuesday, the shot monster thinks things are sufficiently revved up to skip the mixes are get straight to the hard, intoxicating core.
Even the kid bartender is glancing at his watch as the shot monster forces him to line them up with Red Bill on the bar, and coerces as many as possible to take part with the label of softness if they don’t.
The shot monster, a drain on Medicare, drinks to escape and wants to escape quickly.
JON THE BAPTIST
Since this person agreed to go to a pub, you’d think they’d like an alcoholic drink.
Wrong!
It’s actually Dry July or Febfast or Parched March or bloody No Friends November or whatever.
So Diet Coke with lemon is as far as they’ll go while serenading the group with tales of their improved digestion and sleep patterns as everyone else gets stuck into a stout beer thicker than crude oil.
Just as you don’t join a football club to play squash, so should Jon the Baptist stay away from the pub.
DART GHOST
A glance around the circle reveals one of your number has left.
For ten minutes it’s suspected that person has turned against you as a phantom.
But lo, they re-emerge with a kind hand on your shoulder asking if you’re OK for a drink.
The tobacco on their breath makes everything clear — they snuck out for a dart and have now returned like the prodigal son.
Kill the fatted calf for the dart ghost and celebrate. They were lost and now they are found.
Dart Ghost: The prodigal dart ghost, pictured returning from the designated smoking area.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JERKTANNICA
Something happened in this person’s childhood to make them think they know absolutely everything, infallibly.
Want three hours of pain? Ask them about their SuperCoach team or negative gearing.
There has never been a more insufferable jukebox of discomfort than this arrogant windbag.
They are certain they are right, even when Google throws up credible contradictions.
Google must be wrong. The media are wrong. Doctors and policy makers are wrong.
Encyclopaedia Jerktannica is the only truth.
ROCK OF AGES
This old patron stumbled onto a stool in the corner in winter 1972 and has been there ever since.
A mascot of sorts, a quiet pool of knowledge and broken dreams, they love the Doggies and always use a coaster.
When the old fish finally kicks the bucket the cremation will be visible from the moon and the family will inherit a bar tab that could sink the Bismarck.
Rock of Ages: The oldest patron, the rock of ages, remembers when it wasn’t all about fancy craft beer.
NUMBER ONE TICKET HOLDER
An outing to the pub is one big inconvenience for this patron, who is desperate to keep tabs on the game.
If they’re older they might sit in the corner with an analogue radio in their ear, white-knuckling the tabletop.
If they’re younger they might stream the game on their phone with the volume up, clapping loudly when things go their way.
They’re not interested in talking to their friends and their home is presumably awash with booze cheaper than here, so why didn’t they just stay home?
Or go to the game?
An unquenchable thirst to make things mildly awkward for others is the only explanation.
THAT GUY
It starts out fine, until that one guy decides to drink 15 pints of elephant beer.
All of a sudden he’s in a fist fight with a security guard and drooling all over the nylon carpet.
This pub doesn’t even have security guards.
Catch him later on in the gutter covered in vomit and meeting up with the third Uber driver who refuses to take him, having been suspicious from the outset about his 0.5 star customer rating.
BEST OF MELBOURNE
I DIDNT WRITE THIS IT COMES FROM THE HERALD SUN A DIGITAL NEWSPAPER. ONE OF THE MANY DIGITAL NEWSPAPERS I SUBSCRIBE TO.
June 11, 2019 9:45am
HERALDSUN2:43
Where Melbourne's laneways came from
Find out how Melbourne got it's iconic laneways, and how they became the city's cultural drawcard
It should be the aim of Melbourne to be so good that everybody from interstate wants to live here, but not so good that they actually do.
Despite our efforts to keep out the likes of Sydneysiders, Taswegians, Queenslanders and people from different countries like Western Australia, there are plenty of people living in Melbourne who are straight-up faking it.
Here are 40 ways to spot a Melburnian who wasn’t raised here.
1. They say rock melon instead of cantaloupe, duvet instead of doona or scallop instead of potato cake.
2. They have a firm view on State of Origin.
3. They’ve never been on Puffing Billy.
4. They offer you instant coffee without apologising.
The fake Melburnian, having found out about Degraves St five minutes ago.
5. They’ve only just found out about Degraves St.
6. Their wardrobe contains more than one primary colour.
7. They expect two bedrooms with a $500,000 budget.
8. They order a middy.
9. They can’t prove to be three social connections away from someone murdered in the gangland war.
10. They stop at red lights while cycling.
11. They’re not that big into craft alcohol.
12. They will say about a farmers’ market, “I prefer to buy vegetables at the shop for consistency of quality.”
13. They’re suspiciously tanned.
Fake Melburnians love hanging out at Crown at times other than 3am
14. They are in total awe of Crown Casino.
15. They’re surprised when the train doesn’t come.
16. They think cold drip and iced coffee are the same thing.
17. They touch off on the tram.
18. They disparage Victorian beaches.
19. They think a cafe’s choice of second hand furniture is indicative of the quality of their food.
20. They call ahead to try and book a table.
21. They think $25 is too much for a gin cocktail.
22. They think pilates was a Greek philosopher.
23. They assume there’ll be parking.
This burger can’t possibly be edible according to the fake Melburnian.
24. They send back their squid ink burger bun because it’s clearly burnt.
25. They are taken aback when offered a machine-made coffee in a hair or nail salon.
26. They are indifferent to Collingwood.
27. They had no idea Lord of the Fries was vegan.
28. They think cargo shorts are functional, acceptable and even desirable.
29. They believe a train to Tullamarine will be built soon because that’s what the government said.
30. They get on the tram and expect to be able to buy a ticket.
31. They go to a tram stop and expect to be able to buy a ticket.
32. They can explain the off side rule but not holding the ball.
33. They feel obliged to tip service staff.
Quoth the fake Melburnian: Why hasn’t the council cleaned this up yet?
34. They ask why the council hasn’t cleaned up Hosier Ln yet.
35. They think Victoria Bitter and Melbourne Bitter are the same thing.
36. They trust the weather app.
37. They assume Vic Market will be open.
38. They want to visit the real Ramsay St.
39. They want to pop down to Harbour Town for an afternoon out.
40. They can’t believe people park their motorcycles and scooters wherever the hell they like.
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