Mentions in the media

The House Of Refreshment was recently named by Terry Bracks, wife of the Premier of Victoria, as her favourite bar when questioned by The Age monthly magazine. Glad you enjoyed your stay Terry. Bring the Premier next time, he'd enjoy the Geelong FC flavour.

Here's a discussion thread in Mess And Noise following the progress of The House Of Refreshment.

A recent interview from the Abbotsford Convent Newsletter will enlighten you a little more on the philosophy behind the HOR:

Handsome Steve’s House of Refreshment is not your average café/bar, is it?

As a kid growing up in Mount Gambier I loved ‘wog bars’. We had two in town: the Cosmopolitan and the Gi-Gi. They were so mysterious and different. I used to look in through the window and see blokes chatting and having a good time. It was quite intimidating to actually go into those places as it felt like the patrons were members of a club – and I wasn’t a member!

I believe such cafes have played a huge and unsung role in Australia. Those guys were making wonderful coffee as a matter of routine while our parents were still doing science experiments to make a brown fluid they called coffee. That we can now get a reasonable cup of coffee in more than a handful of places is down to those pioneering early cafes.

When I travelled overseas in the Eighties I was pretty excited to see the original wog bars. They used to cook the best eggs and used real oranges to make orange juice – at a time when, back in Australia, orange juice came from a carton.

That’s been my model. It took a bit of a journey, but I’m pretty happy with the way it’s working out.

Have you always been in the hospitality industry?

My dad was a baker in Mt Gambier, so I guess that’s on the periphery of the industry. I played in bands for years in the eighties, mostly overseas, and when I came home in 1989 a mate contacted me and said: “Let’s buy a pub”. When I lived in London I used to have a drink at a great West Indian pub quite unlike anything I’d seen before: it had couches, a great sound system and good food and coffee. Even though I hadn’t poured a beer before (and neither had my mate) I thought the idea of buying The Standard Hotel in Fitzroy was a great idea and we set about making some changes to bring it closer to the feel of the pub I enjoyed in London.

Did the customers welcome your innovations?

As the bloke was taking the jukebox out of the pub, he remarked over his shoulder that we’d be broke in three months – you can’t run a pub without a jukebox! We put in a good sound system and played our kind of music. We chucked out the bain-marie and even turned off the fluorescent lights in the front bar. Hell, we were just about the only pub around that didn’t serve Carlton Cold and we resisted the pressure to serve hot chips for six years!

What we were doing as it turned out was creating the template for new pubs in Fitzroy. In my time with the Standard there were 70 new licences issued in Fitzroy – and virtually all of the pubs in that lot incorporated the concepts we pioneered.

How was life post The Standard?

My business partner left in 1996 and I bailed out a year later. I was ‘out in the desert’ for a while. I applied for a few jobs, although my wife was kind enough to remark that I had the worst resume she had ever seen. Unsurprisingly, none of the applications came to much.

My wife and I started to reproduce. I cruised around, looking at sites, letting ideas firm for the next venture.

And that lead you to the Convent?

Indeed it did. I saw the site and it presented the opportunity to realise my early dream of the wog bar. I put in a bid that included the touches central to the concept, including the terrazzo floor and, of course, the mural. I expected to be either rejected outright or nibbled to death on the details.

To my surprise and delight, the far-sighted people at the Convent gave the go-ahead: yes, you can put terrazzo on the floor; yes, by all means paint a giant mural on the corridor wall.

The already famous Mural! There must be a story to it?

I wanted a picture that could be the model for the mural. I had an idea of the sort of thing I wanted, so when I spotted a cheesy Mediterranean-style picture in a demolition yard in Preston I knew I had my mural design. I asked a set designer to take on the tricky task of transposing the image of the 750mm x 300mm picture to the rather larger canvas of the corridor wall. She did a marvellous job and it took her only two days.

There’s another nice bit of synchronicity with that demo yard. I bought the bar we have here at that yard and chatted to the manager, who mentioned that his father used to graze cattle here. He remembered coming here with his dad after the nuns had left and finding bins of rosary beads abandoned in the empty buildings.

Incidentally, I wanted a boxing picture also and searched around the Internet. I tracked down the terrific shot of Muhammad Ali in classic boxer pose – but underwater. Perfect.

So what’s the philosophy of Handsome Steve’s House of Refreshment?

The key is minimalism: stripping stuff away rather than adding. The essence of a wog bar is that there is no need for a menu, as you know it will have croissants, some cheese, some ham, and good bread perhaps and of course great coffee.

I was in a café in North Fitzroy a while ago and a customer asked for a ‘skinny latte’. The proprietor offered what I considered to be the perfect response: “Lady, this is a wog bar – we don’t serve skinny”. That’s the essence.

I have to add that I was shocked recently when I strolled past that establishment and there in the window was a sign shamelessly proclaiming, “we now have skinny”. A sell-out!

I’ve made compromises, too, though. At the request of a tenant, I now offer decaf, something not on the original plan.

Joking aside, I am serious in my belief that specialisation is the key to running a place that’s interesting to the customer and to the owner. Don’t attempt to be all things to every fashion, but rather do something well. Make a great hamburger, a fabulous spanakopita; keep it simple, with fine ingredients that are always fresh because of the good turnover.

What’s the future for Handsome Steve?

It’s here. This is my future. I’d like my kids to work here to help them pay their way through university. My lease is initially for 5 years but obviously I’m hopeful of extending that. This place will age with me.

Handsome Steve’s seems an ageless sort of place…

Well, growing up is so hard to do, isn’t it? I asked my Dad, well into his eighties, if this growing up business gets any easier as the years tick by.

He said no, it didn’t.

That’s when I decided we all needed a place where we could leave the everyday world behind for a spell: the House of Refreshment. Welcome to Handsome Steve's parallel world. But don't worry - I'll get you back safely!