Melbourne icon review: This timeless cafe celebrates 25 years and seven million lattes

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A few months ago, I was on an early-morning run with my dog when something bad happened. Looming in the pre-dawn gloom, a woman yelled at me. I kept running. She chased us, randomly fixated on me from within what appeared to be a drug haze.

I ran faster, approaching an intersection. My brain raced. There were two places nearby that would be open this early. One was the police station. The other was Wall Two 80, a cafe that’s been creating and cherishing community for 25 years, the proverbial third place and safe space.

I made for the cafe. The woman caught me, her clothes in disarray, eyes wild, screaming incoherently. It wasn’t good, not least for her. But then people arrived, streaming around the corner from the cafe, prising my assailant’s hands from my dog’s neck, leading me and my unbothered pup away to the cafe’s outside tables, pouring water, ordering coffee and dog biscuits, calling the police and waiting steadily and calmly with my morning marauder until they came. It was the embrace of the neighbourhood.

You wouldn’t expect a cafe to offer harbour in a chase, but great cafes are ready for us, giving us what we need in situations mostly mundane and, very occasionally, extreme. And if any cafe has seen it all, it’s Wall.

When Wall Two 80 opened in 1998, it was cool and exciting. Carved into an old kosher butcher by Six Degrees Architects for founders Keith Shreeve and David Sharry, recycled materials and rough finishes made it feel instantly timeless. The communal table ringed by stools was a Melbourne first. In the old coolroom, tiny timber tabletops were barely bigger than paperbacks.

The namesake exterior wall was a graffitied backdrop for cappuccino sippers on milk crates and perforated by a window that was surely the city’s first coffee porthole. These were different times. There were no smartphones: if you were meeting someone, you had to stick to an arrangement. Almonds and oats were as yet unmilked. No one had a labradoodle.

The cafe has served more than 5.5 million customers, 7 million coffees and poured 650,000 litres of milk.

Things have changed in the past quarter of a century, but not that much here. In 2010, the cafe pushed into the old CD shop on the corner, doubling capacity to 70 seats and expanding the menu. The cool vibe was occasionally aloof, but it’s always warm now, with sparkling, unflappable staff.

Current owners Nick Devereux, Greg Bremner and Arthur Spanos are ex-customers and employees who loved the place so much they became custodians 15 years ago. To celebrate Wall’s 25-year anniversary, they made some calculations. The cafe has served more than 5.5 million customers, 7 million coffees and poured 650,000 litres of milk.

The mainstay of the menu has always been filled pides: they have sold 432,000 of them. The soft, sesame-sprinkled rolls are everywhere now, but this 24cm-long pide was made to the cafe’s specifications by Turkish bakery Alasya in Brunswick. (It’s now on the baker’s wholesale list as “Wall”.)

I’m a fan of the roast capsicum pide with goat’s cheese, squishy eggplant and pesto ($13.70).

The soft-boiled “dippy egg” with toast soldiers ($11.50) is both comfort and meditative activity. Sometimes all you need in life is a bacon-and-egg challah roll ($14) or tuna melt ($15.20): you can satisfy those cravings here. The food is consistent, but it’s not life-altering; I appreciate the modest pricing as much as anything else.

Many regulars visit twice a day, after all, and it’s a mixed crowd. Kindergarten teachers wait for coffee next to uniformed detectives. Activewear acolytes shimmer in the morning sun. Flat-dwellers sit on oat lattes that are hard-won after the latest painful rent hike. Commuters swing past on the way to the train, fuelled by the glow of a barista who remembers their name.

And always, there are dogs. Many neighbourhood canines could find their way here unaccompanied because the dog treats (50 cents) are laced with bacon drippings. At Wall, thousands of local children have learned to ask, “Can I pat your dog?”

What of the woman who chased me? The police focused on welfare and saw that she got home sober and safe. I hope she has what she needs to live better mornings. My life is less fraught. A coffee, toasted pide and a biscuit for my dog and I’m all good.

The motto at Wall is “98 to infinity”; if a $4.50 coffee is all it takes to be part of a legacy, I’m there.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine