19/02/2018
Five years ago we moved to Belgrave and stumbled across a vacant shop on the main Street. We couldn’t find a cafe that felt like it could be our ‘third place’. A place that apart from home and work you could meet friends, family, have a meeting, work or just come by yourself and enjoy a cup of joe.
My main motivators were clear. I was always wanted to own my own business, I wanted to be part of a community and make my mark, I wanted to be close to my young family.
We hatched a 5 year business plan and that vacant shop became our second place.
I’ll always remember the first day of trading. Nervously waiting in anticipation for that first customer followed quickly by the ‘oh my god what am I doing?’ feeling. We muddled through that first day and the rest is history.
Looking through Grunge’s story on FB brings back many many fond memories.
I’m proud to have caffeinated and made a mark in the hills community, followed a plan, created a special meeting place and met some incredible people many of whom have become friends.
On Tuesday 20th February Grunge Cafe closes its doors and hands over the keys to another local operator to live their dream and make their mark. We draw comfort in knowing that the cafe is going to a local, well liked experienced operator and wish them the best.
One of my greatest satisfaction was having the opportunity to work with, learn from and develop some incredible staff. Many of them have gone on to bigger and better things. Thanking them and wishing them well in their ventures going forward. We couldn’t have achieved what we achieved without them.
And lastly to our loyal and long standing customers - you all know who you are. In essence all cafes are the same. In my opinion the 3 most important elements are consistently great coffee, attentive and caring service with familiar long standing staff and the X factor, which is the patronage which creates the atmosphere and binds the whole thing together (and pays the bills). It’s like a recipe, and without either one it just doesn’t work well. So thank you for all the laughs, bad jokes, tips, sometimes tears, sharing, recommendations, spilt babycinos, constructive feedback, donated produce and fond fond memories from all of our customers whom have voted with their feet and darkened our doorstep for the past 5 years.
We will miss you.
See you on the other side of the counter!
SOME VITAL STATS:
- 3.6/5 rating from 108 reviews on Zomato 2nd highest by just .1 in Belgrave
- 4/5 from 25 reviews on TripAdvisor
- 7.2 from 13 reviews on Beanhunter
- 3.9/5 from 31 reviews on Google
- 4.7/5 from 74 reviews on FB
- 1447 likes on FB
- Less than 20 staff turnover in 5 years
- Contributed to numerous local clubs, schools and charities
- 1 flood
- 1 fire
- 1 hell of a time
