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.

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.

@MitchellToy