What do you do for an encore once you've sold three of Melbourne's best-loved cafes, Higher Ground, Kettle Black and Top Paddock?

If you're the Mulberry Group, you open Liminal, a 120-seat cafe, wine and produce store and event space in the foyer of the refurbished T&G Building in Melbourne's Collins Street.

And the name? Perhaps aptly, it means a state of transition.

The 400-square-metre stone and timber space, in an art deco building stuffed with corporate and creative types, is expected to open on May 1.

"We look to do things that are a bit different," says Mulberry Group's Nathan Toleman. "We wouldn't usually open a cafe in an office building, but we thought, if we're going to do it, we might as well do it differently.

"Office buildings are normally places people can't wait to escape, but we wanted to give them more reasons to stick around."

Running between Collins Street and Flinders Lane, Liminal will have a store selling wine and essentials (bread, cheese, milk, flowers), a demonstration kitchen and a large private dining room near the Collins Street entrance; a sleek, loungey cafe with an open kitchen in the centre; and a grab-and-go coffee, salad and sandwich section at the Flinders end.

Martin Webster (ex Rare Hare and Montalto) and former Rockpool chef Zac Nicholson will deliver a breakfast and lunch menu.

Drop in for weekly changing salads, hot rolls stuffed with rotisserie chicken and gravy or porchetta with apple, fennel and radicchio, and ma po tofu and noodle buns. Ricotta hotcakes will be back for breakfast in a fresh guise, and they'll serve avocado on rye toast – but it won't be smashed.

Liminal will open 7am-6pm Monday to Friday at 161 Collins Street, Melbourne, from May 1.