I’ve been sleeping with a mattress on the floor for the last year. This has never really bothered me, because in my opinion the mattress is your bed, regardless of where it is. But I just got a girlfriend who I really like, and she wholeheartedly disagrees with me. I obviously want to keep her …
I’m sick of going to the laundromat every week to do my washing. It’s about three blocks away and I don’t have a car, so I carry my tubs of laundry there and then carry the heavier load home when it’s all done. I’ve honestly started growing muscles, which at the start was quite a …
Have you ever been on a road trip with four kids, two dogs and a wife and had your car breakdown in the middle of nowhere? I have. It was an absolute nightmare. We had just driven thirteen hours from the border of Western Australia to the outer suburbs of Perth, and our car broke …
Oh my goodness, what has Melanie done with this place? I go away for a few weeks to move house and she’s completely redecorated Cafe Mint. When I walked into the shop I had to pretend I loved it, but I must confess: I really don’t. What was she thinking, decorating with lilies when roses …
I never thought a hyperbaric chamber would increase revenue, but here we are. Customers are loving it. There’s nothing like getting some tea, coffee or cakes in the morning, then relaxing with a five-minute session in the portable hyperbaric chamber we rented. It has really put Cafe Mint on the map! It was Alyssa’s idea, …
Things I’ve learnt over the past month: nobody wants to drink their matcha latte in anything less than an ideal ambient climate in Melbourne. As a cafe owner, that’s important information to be privy to, and I wish I’d known it before thinking I could get away with a busted air con system. It’s just …
Somewhere along the line, it’s been decreed that cafe staff must wear shoes… apparently. When and by whom this was supposedly established is something I’m not clear on. To my knowledge, people can wear whatever they darned well please on their feet, short of strapping on a pair of lamb cutlets – that would be …
Christopher is really taking this bull by the horns, the bull in question being the ‘mobile cake cart’ concept that came up the other day in our monthly staff brainstorming session. This is typically nothing more than an opportunity for us to sample our own wares – in other words, sit around in the cafe …
You might think of your favourite cafe as a meeting place, a local hangout, a haven from the hustle and bustle of the street. You’d be right in thinking of it that way, but it’s easy to forget that it’s also a work environment. As a cafe owner, the first thing I see when I …
Big news: we might be moving premises. The reason for this is that there are too many competitors popping up on this side of town, and it’s proving difficult to keep up with the onslaught of hip new brewing methods. What we do, we do well, but apparently Continental cakes and reliable flat whites no …