What happened to Melbourne's coffee palaces?
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2023
- Melbourne is renown the world over as the capital of coffee. But despite its modern pretenses, its origins go back much further than you might think. In this video, we look back at the history of Melbourne's magnificent yet largely forgotten coffee palaces.
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A history of coffee in Melbourne: • A history of coffee in...
My website: philipmallis.com
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philam.github.io/videonotes/c...
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I acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which this video was filmed, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Boonwurrung people. I pay respects to Elders past, present and emerging, and their extensive and continuing connection to land, water and country.
It's devastating how much of Melbourne's history has been knocked down :(
Thanks to Whelan The Wrecker.
Sydney was going knock down the QVB to build a car park.
@@JasonDouglasRalph67 It’s who Australians are. Look around neighbourhoods like Richmond and old houses are making way for cookie cutters, it’s an extension of the colonial spirit, build then destroy
Just to be replaced by soulless metal and glass skyscrapers.
@@Boz196 actually most of the grandest buildings destroyed in Melbourne were replaced with horrid brown eyesores that we've now pulled down and replaced with the glass and metal towers
There is an important new chapter to this story. Melbourne was one of the first cities to see the emergence of the Third Wave coffee movement in the mid 2000s; small boutique coffee shops that serve single origin and have a direct relationship with the growers, as opposed to brand based stores like Hudson or Starbucks.
Ive been around the world and..........Every country always says they were one of the first lololol. Dont make that claim unless you have ...been around the world to see !!!
Melbourne's coffee culture is rather overrated - but only by Melbourneans...
What you say is true and also we are regarded as having experts in the field. I've met Colombians who have come here specifically to learn about coffee making at all levels. They know they have the raw materials but they appreciate there's an art to it and have come here for that.
@@supa3ek Yes, I guess the term 3rd Wave is a bit fuzzy. I used to get specialty coffee in the US back in the 90's but that was at niche shops. Even back in the mid 2000s, I could not easily find specialty coffee shops in NYC, and I don't mean Starbucks. James Hoffmann did mention Melbourne and a couple of other cities as being where third wave really took off. Don't ask me to find the video though.
@@Gray-beard there’s a reason why Starbucks failed in Australia, because places like Melbourne already had good coffee.
I’d say Starbucks is the epitome of overrated, and Melbourne has enough choice to have a variety of opinions and outlets.
Choice is not overrated and that’s something it has in droves.
Another example of a coffee palace that survived is at Kilbreda College in Mentone. The building, after the financial crash of the 1890s did fall into disrepair but was eventually turned into a convent. In turn this became a school. However, the original building is still quite a feature in the area and definitely dominates over the streets.
I never knew our history of coffee goes back so far and it has its roots in anti alcohol. Great video
Well done! One of the remaining buildings is the South Yarra Coffee Palace on the corner of Toorak Rd and Claremont st. It’s now a the Hotel Claremont. It was there in 1889/1890 that a young Irish domestic servant , not long off the boat, met a seafaring Frenchman (It was probably on a Sunday afternoon when she’d had some time off from her duties in the nearby home of the Brookes family ). They were married soon after in the nearby Catholic Church and took up the running of a hotel in what is now Lakes Entrance. They’re my great grandparents, Jean Baptiste Confait and Ellen Cunningham.
Just brilliant Paul, what an honour : God bless your family... history at its best.
Some amazing architecture in this episode. On Melbourne Cup Day in 1895, the exotic Oriental Tea Room was opened as part of Cole's Book Arcade in Bourke Street (where David Jones is today). Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling both visited there on occasion. The Book Arcade's creator, E. W. Cole, was staunchly anti-alcohol and was also fiercely opposed to the White Australia policy, so he employed waitresses of Chinese heritage to give the place some authenticity.
My dad has a couple of the hard-cover Cole's Funny Picture books stored away. From memory, the back cover has an illustration of the Cole's Book Arcade. Until I read your comment (and looked it up), I never realised that the Cole's Book Arcade was an actual place. I thought it was just some fantasy depiction to add to the other stories in the books.
@@maifantasia3650 I can understand that, given that the Funny Picture book was so over the top, but Cole's Book Arcade was incredible: it had its own live band who played in the music department, a fernery complete with aviary, a printing department, the aforementioned tea room and even monkeys in cages.
Some great and interesting history there.
Twain & Kipling. And of course Houdini was a visitor to Melb several times.
Very few people realise Melbourne was one of several 'world' cities back in the 1850s to around 1900 time period along with Ballarat, Vienna, Paris, New York, London
@@garynewton1263 There is a Houdini connection with E. W. Cole as well. Cole was long obsessed with the idea of "heavier than air" flight -- even in the 1800s he knew that flying machines would be a thing at some stage and even offered a few wacky illustrations of his idea of what they would look like in the 'Cole's Funny Picture Book'. When Houdini came here in 1909 he did several powered flights at Digger's Rest (100 feet in the air) and Cole was there to witness it. It meant a lot to him.
@@NewFalconerRecords Yes, I've read about Houdini being the first in Australia to fly a powered areoplane. I'm proud that it happened in Victoria.
Houdini loved Melbourne.
I just discovered recently the City of Melbourne Building at 112-118 Elizabeth St was actually designed by the same architects as the Federal Coffee Palace and built around the same time, its like a miniature version with the same style of ornate decoration on the exterior, while still very impressive its a really a shame the state it's in though, I cant believe nobody has bothered to clean and restore it, it would look absolutely amazing.
(This comment is firmly tongue in cheek). I disagree with restoration/cleaning of that building. The demons and ghouls that reside within it's numerous secretive rooms and infinite corridors would go on the rampage at such a disturbance to their peace and solitude.
If it's heritage listed and it almost certainly is then the restrictions placed on future development are so onerous as to dissuade any developer from spending the money required... So eventually it deteriorates to a point where it gets demolished. More wonderful unintended consequences of governmental regulation.
@@cairnex4473 - if that building was ever demolished, what occured in New York City in _Ghostbusters (1984),_ after the EPA shut down the containment unit, would look like a minor disturbance, in comparison.
"Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... MASS HYSTERIA!"
I've walked past that building so many times & wondered what it was for. I call it the Sanctum Sanctorum.
I used to have a studio in that building and I loved it. It's so cool inside and you can smoke on the roof.
Great to see Melbourne's history is still alive and well. ✌🏻
Nothing warms the heart on a cold winters day better than coffee.
Nice work Philip. It's worth mentioning that the gold rush brought coffee palaces to a number of places in regional Victoria as well, albeit some a lot more grand than others. Most of these have vanished as well, but Reid's Coffee Palace in Ballarat and the Midland Private Hotel in Castlemaine are some nice remaining examples, both near their respective railway stations.
Thank you! And yes you're right, there were many more right across Victoria and Australia.
Just got back from a cycling trip to Spain, France and Switzerland. Melbourne has the best coffee in the world. Very interesting to hear the history of coffee palaces setup to compete with pubs.
This is a fascinating video! Thank you so much. What a tragedy that these buildings are not still with us today. The office block (old Board of Works) build at 555 Collins was a horrid building.. and has recently been sold off (was used by National Australia Bank for many years) and re-fitted out in the last few years. I'm going to follow your channel as the subject of Melbourne's historic buildings is of great interest to me.
A nice connection for my memories Philip. I purchased one of the last “Gibbys Coffee Lounge” shops back in the 1970’s. Gibbys was a coffee institution for Melbourne especially in the 1950’s/60’s. They were characterised by large prints of of Charles Dickinson era London Coffee Palace scenes for which our shop retained. The continuance of the name was not an option so we renamed our shop “Clayton’s” but left the Gibbys format intact. Being next to the iconic “Tiki and John’s” theatre restaurant and theatre district meant meeting some interesting characters over those years. A very different Marvellous Melbourne in those days! Love your work Philip👏
Thank you for sharing, that's very interesting. I'll have to look into that!
@@philipmallis Thanks Philip, the “best” of the Gibbys Lounge shops was in Royal Arcade. I wonder if a look at those original Melbourne Theatre Restaurants (Tiki and John’s) or iconic restaurants aka “The Olive Tree”are worth a look at?
I remember Gibbys and Tiki and Johns, was just but a teenager back then.
This was wonderful!
I've spent the last hour deep-diving historical maps to try and find some.
I work in Collingwood and recognise the façade above the Woolworths on Smith Street.
Was Collingwood full of bootmakers?
I did strayan history and it covered ‘smelbourne’.
I learnt to look above street level to see history- which has mostly disappeared
@@man.inblack not sure about boot-makers, but loooots of textiles, so it's very likely
The old Mentone Coffee Palace building still survives as Kilbreda School in Mentone.
Such a gorgeous building, an incredible shame you can no longer view its magnificence from the train with the recent Mentone railway station upgrade 😔
My parents had their wedding reception and wedding photos (the latter in the lobby) in 1965 in the Federal hotel on Collins St.
Great video. Peter Jansen the ex racing car driver used to live in the Penthouse of the Federal Coffee house until its demolition. Good to see one of my local cafes “Ginger Fox” in the video too! 💫
Love your videos Mr. Mallis and, with the amount of research and detail you go into, it's easy to make minor errors. The gold rush you mention at 2:47 would have been in 1851.
Thank you! And yes you're very right, apologies for the confusion!
@@philipmallis - thank you but no need for the apologies as the images certainly set the scene for the 1800's.
As always, keep up the fantastic work that you do, researching, exploring and sharing your videos of the magnificent city of Melbourne.
Great work Philip. You provide a priceless historical record of those precious years.
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it!
Great video, really interesting. I remember in the 50’s and 60’s you’d see “Whelan the Wrecker was here” signs everywhere in Melbourne.
I was born in the late 60s but relate to your comment so there must have been some in the 70s or early 80s too
Certainly in Victoria, I think probably most country towns had a Coffee Palace . I was born in Warracknabeal and there was a substantial one there , and even though it was still called “ the Coffee Palace “ in 1960s it had long stopped serving coffee . My mother worked for a time at the coffee palace in Murtoa in the1930s .Both these towns are in the Wimmera .
Yes I’ve just discovered this myself yesterday when I came across a photo of a coffee palace in Maryborough, a town west of Maldon and Castlemaine.
Great research Phillip…and a wonderful education. I’ll have to walk in the front door of the one on Grey St….not far, and was very happy to see the quite traditional restoration of the building on the corner of Grey and Fitzroy just recently…very much in keeping with the Coffee Palace and the George Hotel across the way.
Don't make me cry. Absolute architectural sacrilege demolishing the Federal Coffee Palace on King Street. One of the finest buildings ever to be erected in Melbourne, if not Australia. Sadly no more. A lasting travesty.
I agree, it's stunning. My Mother worked there in the 50s and it was the most beautiful building in Melbourne, if not Australia. How could this work of Art be "demolished?"
@@Sami-ArtAus absolute vandalism
Fascinating! I hadn't realised coffee had such a long history in Melbourne. Thank you.
Great as always, much enjoyed, those early coffee palaces remind me of the Budapest coffee palaces and Vienna of course. Most of those are still standing and going strong, its a shame we lost those buildings.
Whelan the Wrecker has a lot to answer for!
Thank u so much for this delightful piece of history (though sad to see only a few still standing). Broke my heart that an architectural giant like the Federal Coffee Palace was demolished 🥲
Thanks for highlighting the rich and interesting buildings around Melbourne. I try and look up as I walk around - above the ubiquitous plate glass windows at street level you can often see upper levels which show their original use.
Always enjoy your videos, thanks very much Philip. So glad the Windsor was never demolished, the thought is horrifying.
A fascinating video and thank you very much! Growing up in the 50s & 60s and having English maternal grandparents I'd always thought that tea was the main non-alcoholic drink of choice but it definitely seems not!
Great Vlog Philip. Enjoyed it. 👍🏼🙏🏼
Love your work buddy keep 👍 it up. Very interesting.
Great video mate! Well done.
fantastic! your videos give me hope for something different in this world, to see the massively different city we have lost means that massive changes can happen :)
Sad to here most of the old buildings were demolished, I rather the old look of buildings than the modern ones today. Also I didn't know that they had a coffee house in Mornington, I always knew it as a pub.
Awesome thank you what a great video now I am going exploring with a coffee in hand around Melbourne to see what still remains
I've seen many of Philip's videos.
They are always detailed, well explained and really interesting.
Pity he isn't hosting programs on australian television regarding Victorian history, I'd be an avid viewer. ✌️
Thanks for creating this video! Really enjoyed it, I’ll try and visit the st kilda coffee palace!
was very pleasantly surprised to see my sleepy hometown beaumaris featured at 6:52! fantastic video as always philip :^)
Great stuff, great images ! Glad to see you read my edits to the federal coffee palace getting their wine licence first, and liquor licence much later. Only quibble is that tea was always more popular than coffee, but coffee required a large machine, so you had to out to get some.
Hi Philip, a very interesting video. In Echuca (where I live) there is an old Coffee Palace and Temperance Hotel. It became an Antique dealer, but I'm not sure what it is used for now
Great vid Thank you
Very informative! Thank-you for this video!
You are very welcome!
Would have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall in the rooms where they decided to demolish so many of those old buildings. It feels like today the most lackluster brutalist buildings get heritage protection when in the '70s they would just knock down anything to build a few stories higher.
Melbourne has always had the best coffee. Great story. 😊
Great video..
Very interesting!
Always happy to see temperance union bubble taps, and, posh hotels for coffee, too. I wish we had those style kind of ... third places with no booze now!
That was really interesting, I learned something I didn't know about my home town.
Interesting work Philip. I'll be working out of 555 Collins from Feb. I'll think of the Federal every time I have a coffee.
Hard to believe they are gone from the city, such grand architecture
Coffee History! 😊
Another former Coffee Palace is Kilbreda college in Mentone. I went to school nearby and was always amazed at it.
I remember the Italian and Greek owned coffee lounges like The Golden Tower, etc that had little juke boxes at each table.
Yes, me too agree! No more European immigrants..... all stopped, BUT wonderful stuff we Australia learnt from one another...
we still have it today and it has made our home Australia richer in every aspect! It was an exciting time l remember!!
I'm glad l was a part of it, l myself from Europe.
The Federal Coffee Palace WOW what a grand building & to think this was demolished. Surely it could have been repurposed. I love those old grand buildings what a treat it would be to enjoy coffee in that setting today. Even if we wanted to im not sure we could build it as beautifully today! Seems our buildings have lost their granduer & elegance!
Thank you, that was interesting.
Glad you enjoyed it!
nice work
My great grandparents, a seafaring Frenchman from the Seychelles and an Irish maid , both recently arrived in Melbourne, met at the South Yarra Coffee Palace. The still quite impressive building is still there at the corner of Toorak rd and Claremont st.
Well purpose built buildings in those days . I worked at the old Gas and Fuel building on the north side of Flinders St, the old Herald and Weekly times building , had long lunches on Fridays at the old Duke of Wellington on
Flinders St and played pool at Lindrums snooker and pool hall .. great days .. 🇦🇺
The coffee house shown at the 2 minute mark is not located in Melbourne nor Victoria but is located in Mitcham, Adelaide South Australia.
Great video 🎉
Thank you 😁
Fascinating content, Melbourne is such a beautiful city and now we know why. I love it!
Some corrections however:
Melbourne is renowned the world over as the capital of coffee. (there's an ED in renowned).
But despite its modern pretences (it's with a C or you could say, pretensions).
I remember my mother taking me to Temperance meetings as a child.
Albert Park has a nice one too. It’s now a block of flats and in excellent condition. Seems that those closer to the sea had a better chance of surviving the wrecking ball.
kilbreda college in mentone near the railway station was originally a coffee palace. the main building on the front corner is still there.
Nice video. Strangely I feel like a coffee now for some reason.
Inventor Alexander Graham Bell, US President Herbert Hoover, and Author Mark Twain all stayed in the magnificent Federal Coffee Palace.
Its demolition in 1973 was sadly not opposed by the nascent National Trust who were mote focused at the time on protecting older colonial-era buildings.
Today, the Federal's loss is arguably the most regretted of all the wonderful buildings that fell victim to the wrecking ball in the poat-war period.
A sneaky Adelaide building snuck into this video I see :D
Absolutely! 2.00 Mitcham, Adelaide
And it still amazes me to this point that quite a few people still don’t embrace coffee as there go to drink 😢
Mentone, Kilbreda site.
Ah Melbourne.
What a city.
At least you can still get a sit-down cuppa after 5pm.
In Sydney it's only 7 / 11 after 5 pm and if you sit down in they call the cops.
Melbourne is Australia's global city where I used to live and may return.
I am interested how the drinking of tea became more dominant in English and Australian society: why? What were the drivers for this change? Was it a perception that drinking tea was more exclusive, more prestigious, than drinking coffee?
I wondered that too.
chinese influence,big tea drinkers.
Good question! I was going to dive into this a bit but cut it from the script.
There were a couple of factors that spurred the widespread adoption of tea in the Anglosphere. The first was the increasing spice trade throughout the 18th century which made tea much easier and cheaper to obtain. Then you had marketing efforts from those merchants - most notably the East India Company - advertising tea. Finally you had the Victorian era public health interest, and tea was advertised as being good for you.
There were many other factors of course, but these are some of the main ones. As this all happened in the UK, it came through to Australia over time. There's this BBC article that helps explain more: www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zm2txyc
Such a shame this beautiful and intelligent architecture got replaced with prison like glass monstrosities.
Yes Ballarat has a Coffee Palace, although it is mainly [ONLY] accommodation now days and I have wondered about its history and if such establishments still exist. I think the days of large styled coffee corporations is fading out and the boutique coffee is more appreciated. Like previous comments have been made.
The building at 2.00 is in Adelaide.... interesting video cheers
My Mother worked at the Federal Hotel in the 50s and it was the most beautiful building in Melbourne, if not Australia. This work of Art should NOT have been "demolished." WHY? To see that ugly new office building breaks my heart. 😢
A good recommendation from CZcams, hooray
I used to do deliveries around Melbourne CBD and the suburbs of Melbourne. One of our customers was Genovese Coffee in Coburg.
I went there so often they would make me coffee if I asked. They had working espresso machine for the staff to use, in the hallway, the warehouse and the showroom. Naturally after I used the mens' room one time I prosaically asked, "Are you considering an espresso machine in the toilet?" The response was, "Yes, yes, yes, very funny that's only about the 900-a-hundreth tima thata questions hasa beena askedta." LOL
Anyhow I did ask them whether the coffee is better here or in Italy. The response was, "Unquestionably the coffee is better here than in Italy." Coming from an Italian family that routinely travels to Italy, kind of gives some perspective I would've thought.
He did mention they don't sell boutique high end coffee and that anywhere in the world that specializes in that product is going to make better coffee than you can generally buy in Melbourne but the point of Melbourne having readily accessible good if not very good coffee, was plain enough.
I drink a quite a lot of coffee and I can say the coffee in Melbourne is pretty good for the most part. I still manage to find the fair share of very average and even bad coffee however - perhaps once or twice a week.
In Vic country bad coffee in towns is about a 75% surety, so one tends to use Maccas where one can and get a consistent 6.5/10 coffee if you ask for an extra shot rather than the 3/10 coffee on offer in most other places - businesses that don't drink coffee just sell it because they have to.
Of course in tourist towns the coffee is far better, with some exceptions - a cafe in Beaufort (at the park) on the Western hwy has consistently the best takeaway coffee I have ever had but they use a boutique brand.
Not just Melbourne, country towns had Coffee Palaces (and temperance union branches). In the country coffee has taken over the daytime but pubs still rule the evenings. Time for a modern temperance movement….
"Time for a modern temperance movement…."
🤣
Grand codfee palace is cslles Grand Hotel Morningtin. Is thst right?
Yes that's right, one of the coffee palaces that eventually turned to serving alcohol to survive
Recently discovered your channel and have binged a lot of your videos. Fantastic content, very enjoyable and informative.
I lived just over the hill from the Maribyrnong ammunitions factory for a long time. That bridge to the bottom of Afton St would have saved us a lot of time travelling to Highpoint!
I went to Uni at Sunbury, lovely old buildings but it lacked the atmosphere and public transport facilities required to be a successful campus.
... and Hoffmans Road and Rosamond Road are on the exact same alignment, so a connecting road had some logical basis
Thank you very much, glad you're enjoying them, sounds like you have close connections to many of these topics!
Really interesting video. I’m still a little confused why Melbourne specifically is such a coffee hub compared to our neighbours in other states. Was it solely because of the gold rush?
Melbourne was a 'world' city in the 1850s to 1900 period. Ballarat, New York, London, Vienna and Paris were THE cities to be in.
That probably explains why Australia's other cities weren't comparable.
Gary is right in the comment above, the goldrush really put Melbourne 'on the map'. Victoria was the centre of attention for much of this period and grew incredibly rapidly. At one point, Flinders Street was the busiest railway station in the entire world. Many of Melbourne's finest buildings were designed or constructed at this time and it shows!
Later on, Melbourne was also a popular destination for Italian and Greek migration after the Second World War, more so than most other places in Australia.
@@philipmallis Yes. On both counts.
Yes Flinders Street and the Melbourne electrified metro network was the busiest in the world too, not just the FS station.
Very proud that my Grandfather drove Australia's very first metro electric passenger train from Essendon to Elsternwick.
The line was eventually electrified to Sandringham and Glenroy.
Going to do a hell of a lot of exploring when I do relocate home to Melbourne. Miss it very much.
When I came to Melbourne 30 something years old .
There was not a lot of great coffee unless you knew where to go .
Now it has become a commodity
Before it was a secret wonderful experience of tradition and the expresso machine from Italy .
The Newport Coffee House became a boarding house for many years. Don’t know about now because boarding houses have fallen out of favour. It was run by an eccentric old lady the likes of whom you would think was a character from a Dickensian play. It mainly housed single working men. This was back in the 1960’s.
thought it was funny that you showed the Ginger Fox cafe in Beaumaris but didn't mention the main admin building of Kilbreda in Mentone was a coffee palace, 'tis a rather grand building for the area
Rather interesting, I thought coffee was a much more modern occurrence in Melbourne, I'm 62 and I don't remember coffee as having any significance in my younger years, the closest I ever got to it was when with my parents bought a coffee peculator that I loved watching in action as a child. It wasn't until I married an Italian that I saw anything other than the odd instant coffee (if you despise instant coffee, try an old school cafe-bar machine, then a jar or Moccona will seem golden). Coffee shops seem to me to be a waste of space, way overpriced drinks, I never saw them as a social place. Yes I've attended a larger place/eatery with a group, but having an engaging conversation never really worked for me, way too noisy, as opposed to a quiet house visit.
Great video! But OMG. Can you tell me where to find out about whelan the wrecker? The building I lease in Brunswick was built in 1952 from materials entirely sourced from them but I havnt found info about them. Maybe I was searching the wing name… 🤔 and pointers appeared
Oh wow cool, I previously searched the wrong name! Found lots of info already…
Thanks, and glad you found some information! I would suggest the book 'A City Lost and Found' by Robyn Annear (who's also written other fantastic books about the history of Melbourne). You should be able to find it at the library or find a copy at bookshops: www.goodreads.com/book/show/21823884-a-city-lost-and-found
The Federal Coffee palace is VERY similar in design to the Shamrock Hotel in Bendigo.
Cafe Noturno in Lygon st! Best short black in the world!
Hot beverages. This year ive had 1000 coffees only 50 of them have been hot coffees.
Asia does some terrific cold coffees especially Vietnam
There are so many cafes in metro Melbourne
Victoria in general
... the same that happened to Smorgy's :).
There is a building called the yarra coffee palace in yarraville. .
Hi Philip in the video you said the gold rush happened in 1951.Should it be 1851
TKS Gary
We were once the most liveable city in the world. and even now we are third! We are leading in coffee!
Is Melbourne really world renown as the capital of coffee? I have never heard of Australian coffee reputation until arriving here, it seems self-proclaimed to me. Yet, I admit, I didn't like other countries coffee anymore after trying Australians. Good coffee seems to be around the corner rather than being "holy sites" like most countries in Europe many of which are stuck in the over roasted bean era (France) despite advance gastronomy.
I take my thermos and drink a sachet coffee in the city😅.
👍
The temperance motivation to promote alternatives contrasts rather with the English 1674 Womens' Petition Against Coffee.
And, as an aside, is Tankard the best surname to have as a teetotaler? :)
looks like coffee palaces have a pretty high status to entry, no wonder they failed.
2:47 Probably already commented on but the gold rush was 100 years earlier - 1851 🙂
Yes I meant to say 1851, sorry for the confusion