How a coffee shop makes a canberra suburb %100 better.
Ok, so this blog post is from personal experience and I hope to share this with any future house hunters or rental prospects as you find a home in the canberra suburbs.
My wife and I when we first got married had a very small two bedroom apartment rental spot in a 1980s-1990s built design which for the most part was very cozy yet freezing in winter due to the solid brick / air gaps.
Though it was older, we loved it and it was perfect for us at the time. It was a quiet suburb, not much happening other than the occasional speeding commodore or screaming neighbours and the occasional street cat fight (Actual cats, not people).
But one thing we always found frustrating was that the local shop we had which was a 5 minute walk, had zero purpose.
“There was a local shop on the street corner, it looked normal at first, until you realise the fridge section is full of ugg boots. I went to get milk and it was 9 days out of date. The alcohol section was literally half of the store.”
That’s exactly what we found. A suss as store, a takeaway spot (Which was decent) but it was clear that once was a thriving spot in the 90s was clearly dead and lifeless.
This was even more so the case when Covid hit, and with that, came a lovely surprise. A coffee van.
I’m not exactly sure how it started, or how it came to be. But when it came, it was a light in a dark place, a glimpse of community that arose from the depths of a quiet dead suburb.
Not only did the coffee van bring a sense of community, it was actually something you could look forward to in COVID. To go outside, explore your own suburb and get a nice sweet treat and coffee to make the day a bit better.
Sadly, the coffee van didn’t last. But it did spawn a community project to restore the shops as the suss as shop owners seem to have been closed down and now was to be refurbished into a fancy yoga place.
We’ve since left that suburb, but after visiting a couple of times, there’s a wonderful brand new coffee shop called “Sweet Bones Cafe” which is very popular and made us slightly jealous because of how much foot traffic there was.
But it got me thinking. Can a simple coffee shop make a difference in a suburb? Short answer. Yes.
Hospitality has done it tough over the past few years, and some have Innovated to survive and thrive, and opportunities have arisen for new ventures to pop up and some of those ventures appear in the middle of suburbs.
These key spots are such good community builders. It’s like a fresh pulse in a suburb. A place to walk to, a place to stop in on the way to work, a friendly face to see before you get to the office for example.
I think if a suburb doesn’t have a coffee place or some sort of morning stall / shop. It’s a massive missed opportunity.
When house hunting or looking for a rental property, I highly recommend doing a quick check to see what’s near by. For us, it’s a nicely little family activity to go and get a coffee together at our local. Even if we can make one at home, it’s just nice to get some sun and have a chat with the lovely owners. (They look after us well.)
So it left me with this question. Are you in a suburb that has a coffee place? Does it make a difference? Maybe have you lived in a boring canberra suburb, but then a new coffee shop or something like it popped up and it’s no longer boring? I’d love to hear from you! DM ME @themortz