• Melbourne's milk bars return with specialty coffee, sourdough bread and better milkshakes

If you want a showcase of the myriad ways hospitality can promote community, you could do no better than plonking down at Tyler's.

This milk bar cafe – forged as a takeaway hub when it opened last July – is owned by sisters Sam and Alli Fisher.

Their mum Kim is a regular presence, lovingly slathering her carrot cake with cream cheese frosting or arriving with freshly laundered napkins.

The family feeling extends to the staff, who all seem cheerily invested, and the customers, who are welcomed with warmth, every visit another stitch in the cosy tapestry of companionship.

The neighbourhood location helps, near a hilltop shopping crossroads that the 1966 opening of Northland imperilled, and which suburban creep and COVID are helping resurrect.

But it's mostly the Fisher sisters. They live locally, play footy with the Preston Bullants, and prioritise connection in the way they source, serve and see stuff.

The breakfast scramble is named after egg company Honest Eggs, because it's a nice way to honour a great producer. The eggs are folded with Gippsland Jersey butter, seasoned generously and scattered with herbs from the jaunty backyard. Sourdough toast is from microbakery Back Alley Bakes, 260 metres away.

The Top of the Morning Burger includes an oozy fried egg and a golden mustard-tangy potato hash, as well as smoky mayo and jalapenos to amp the oomph. The lovely squishy bun is from Wildwood Bakery, another micro-local.

Sandwiches are crafted with appropriate pride. The Aunty Margie toastie is an homage to margherita pizzas rather than anyone's aunt, and the Sally Sanga is a classic country bakery salad sandwich with lettuce, grated carrot, beetroot and housemade pickles.

Nothing at Tyler's is complicated but it's housemade with care, a dollop of nostalgia and a sparkling sprinkle of love.