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If you build it, they will come. But what if you run out of money while you’re building it? Maybe you can ask them to help you get it across the line? That was the desperate thinking behind Gemini, a 50-seat cafe, bar, restaurant and pantry that’s changed Coburg for the better.

Tresna Lee and Shane Farrell moved into the neighbourhood nine years ago and kept wishing someone would open a cosy hangout nearby: why should they have to head south to Brunswick or Carlton for a nibble and a nebbiolo?

Lamenting turned into looking for a site to do it themselves. Farrell was an experienced cafe manager, after all, and Lee had done plenty of work in restaurants, as well as running food tours and working at online review platform Yelp. They went in hard, selling their house and buying an 1888, two-storey building on Sydney Road, the suburb’s main artery.

The place works as a snack-and-run or you can settle in. On Fridays, you can soak up Wi-Fi and unlimited filter coffee, plus a knock-off drink for $50.

Between buying what had once been a socialist gathering place in March 2022 and getting the keys six months later, interest rates went up twice and building costs skyrocketed. Then there were the inevitable curve-balls of renovating a 135-year-old building and the apparently necessary task of fighting for a year to get the electricity connected. They remortgaged to continue, then drained the coffers again. What to do?

Lee and Farrell crowd-funded, selling gift vouchers, perks and memberships to Gemini. They aimed to create a community space, after all: couldn’t the cart pull the horse for a bit? Coburg pitched in to the tune of $40,000 and Gemini swung open its doors in September last year.

You can still buy a membership: $150 gets you 5 per cent off all purchases in 2024, plus invitations to wine-tastings and the like. But even if you blow in off the street, as I did, it’s easy to tap into neighbourhood nourishment.

The place feels settled and optimistic, and I think I know why: it’s because Gemini is here for the long haul. “Tough economic climates are temporary, but community is forever,” Lee tells me when I call her to fact-check something. That forever spirit is the fuel.

Early on, it’s coffee and pastries and calm light. On Wednesdays, it might be a sunset spritz for a neighbourhood catch-up, lazy sunbeams playing on exposed bricks and warm timber tables. On Fridays, you can bring your laptop and soak up Wi-Fi and unlimited filter coffee, plus a knock-off drink for $50.

Winemakers drop by to hang at the bar and chat about current releases: that’s one of the joys of having a mostly Victorian drinks list. Alex down the road keeps bringing baskets of zucchinis. Pat comes in with cucumbers. There’s honey from Coburg bees.

This local bounty turns up on the snacky, Euro-leaning menu by chef Sriram Aditya Suresh. I’ve loved Adi’s food at Saadi, the Indian pop-ups he runs with his wife, chef Saavni Krishnan. Adi was born in India, became obsessed with French and Italian food and trained in restaurants that include Sydney’s Alberto’s Lounge and Melbourne’s Neighbourhood Wine. Here, in his first head-chef job, he’s making simple, tasty dishes that cleverly coax flavours from humble ingredients.

Persimmon (dropped in by Melissa) is sliced very thinly, furled into dainty florets and laid over mild, milky stracciatella cheese ($18).

Panisse is topped with a spiced pumpkin relish ($6 each). These chickpea flour fritters are a wine-bar staple, but I don’t think anyone is making them better than this: creamy, crunchy, light and satisfying.

Focaccia is the new sourdough. Adi’s flatbread ($5) is made with a potato dough and the whey that drains from the ricotta ($10) that you should order to accompany it in a happy, culinary ouroboros.

If you’re not a dairy-lover, you’ll need to pick your way carefully through the menu, but if you’re on Team Cheese with me, you’ll probably round off with the cheesecake ($18), an unbaked, pistachio-laced whip that’s piled over a short, crumbly, gluten-free version of a Breton sable biscuit.

The place works as a snack-and-run or you can settle in and, if there’s a bunch of you, the chef’s table by the kitchen is the easy pick.

Gemini is miles from my place, so I’m never going to use it in the way it’s been designed: as a local larder that threads through the week; somewhere you can drop off extra backyard lemons before having them served back to you in a salad dressing or G&T.

If you’re local, you’re lucky. If you’re not, you can trust in the embrace: Gemini is a gem.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine