Just Open: Aunty Peg's, Collingwood

How about popping round to Aunty Peg's for a coffee? The newly opened Collingwood cafe and coffee retail space, by Nolan Hirte of Proud Mary, is named after Hirte's grandmother, known to everyone as Aunty Peg.

Hirte has designed the interior of the huge Collingwood warehouse with his father, Bob. They have created a retail space with a coffee bar that seats 12, serving espressos, pourovers and a changing selection of cold-filtered coffee on tap. Latte drinkers, you'll have to go elsewhere. There's no milk here.

"Aunty Peg's is the 'cellar door' to the roastery and to our coffee," says Hirte.

"It's a chance to show customers how much work and passion goes into the Proud Mary brand."

In the retail space there will be what Hirte calls the "Genius bar", where coffee-making equipment such as a French press, Aeropress and drip filter will sit at individual stations for customers to "have a play and learn how to make coffee properly" at home.

There's no breakfast or lunch menu but pastry chef Gad Assayag, most recently of Carlton North's Green Park diner, will run a full production kitchen upstairs, making pastries and bread for their other outlets - Proud Mary and Stagger Lee's - and wholesale.

Customers can view the coffee roasters in action from the retail area downstairs. Upstairs is a training area for Hirte's wholesale customers. There's also a table tennis table for quiet moments but given the scale of this project (1100 square metres), it may not get much use. It will be open daily 8am-5pm.

Aunty Peg's, 200 Wellington Street, Collingwood, 9417 1333