Cycling and cafes go hand in hand. A bike ride doesn’t end at the sprint finish – it ends after some good food and a few coffees are consumed at your favorite cafe. Melbourne is a big city and there’s more great cafes than I’ve experienced in any other place. I’ve had the good fortune of having many mates who have been around for a long time and know the cycling friendly cafes with the best coffee and food. Here are my favorites in the SE Suburbs of Melbourne close to Beach Rd.
BTW, I’m working on a future post that rates on the many best cycling friendly coffee shops in Melbourne. Please hit me with suggestions and my panel and I will do the task of photographing and judging them. What’s the UCI legal limit for caffeine? I’ll maybe wait a week until my next race…
Best Coffee: Wall 280 – rear 280 Carlisle St, Balaclava
Genovese coffee, frothed milk to perfection, and a grungy character location. When this place closes it’s doors you’d never know it’s there.
Best Fruit Toast: Amici Bakery Cafe – 242 Chapel Street, Prahran
For $5.90 you can get more of this delicious fruit toast that you’ll be able to eat. It’s massive and baked right on site. Great location on Chapel St right across the road from TFM.
Biggest Coffee: Nacional – 36 Mills Street, Albert Park
Sometimes after a long ride I crave a cereal bowl full of coffee. I haven’t come across one this big since I left North America. This is actually a medium sized cuppa joe in the US. Is it good? It’s pretty good, but more importantly it has about 60g of protein with all that milk.
{ 26 comments }
— You are quite correct, I love the bean and the bike together!
Favourites:
Chapel Street – Orange
Carlisle Street – Batch
http://www.melbournecoffeereview.com/
check out the hot shots cafes. Maybe you could swing by and check the cyclist friendly levels…
Yup, Orange has great fruit toast!
Can’t forget the bircher at Grocery Bar.
Apte – just off the end of the Boulevard, Chandler Hwy end. You won’t get in on the weekend, but weekdays are brilliant. Best coffee I have ever had…
Brother Baba Budan, 359 Little Bourke St … just up the hill from Queen St, on the left. The coffee is so amazingly good, I’ll ride to the city just for this place.
BBB Little Bourke St, no finer cup in Melbourne followed closely by St Ali Sth Melbourne!
For a bucket of coffee in the Williamstown / Newport area, Odd Spot Cafe, Melbourne Rd.
Come back to California and try a Peets Coffee house. A cap to die for.
The Dish in Eaglemont, just east of the train station is fantastic after a ride around Melbourne’s north eastern hills. It’s like a step back in time – located in a quiet street, friendly service & quaint architecture (plus plenty of room to rest your bike). The array of great food & aroma of strong coffee highlighted by the ‘Golden Door’ muffins – no dairy or eggs but plenty of wholesome flavour.
Are you that guy with the cravat on Masterchef? You forgot to mention the balance of the dishes, the evenness on the palette etc
in brunswick, ray (victoria st) or the brunswick east project are both sensational. well worth a slight detour on the way home from kinglake.
Disagree. Great cafe but not bike friendly and almost impossible to get a seat.
for big coffee, try the belgian waffle cafe, desgraves pl, city. mark’s belgish accent is almost as good as the fresh baguettes…
No way will I be submitting my opinions on Melbourne’s best coffee that I find cycling friendly – I don’t want the cool little places I hit become the next fad place where I can no longer find a spot to sit and enjoy…
I will say though that for a MASSIVE brew, also try Torch on Swan St Richmond – I was scared the first time I saw it.
I kind of agree with you Will T, but at the same time the extra exposure is good for their business.
Try Almost French on Swan St, Richmond (right next door to Dimmeys). Good coffee, and all of the bakery goodies are made inhouse – their Almond Croissant is Melbn’s finest (confirmed by many 3rd parties).
the newly opened Seven Seeds in Berkley St in Carlton has bike parking inside the cafe. yes that’s right, inside the cafe. the bonus is that their coffee is exceptional (as you’d expect from the crew who brought you three of the cafes mentioned above)
Pippa May Cook: 719 High St Thornbury – but only on saturday, sunday and monday: great coffee, gorgeous girls and Melbourne’s best muffins… all on the way home from King Lake too… and they LOVE cyclists! go figure…..
Not being one to indulged in the supposed delights of caffeine, I am yet to fathom the fuss about that brew. Black tea for mine – milk, no sugar.
Ok, I’ve compiled a list that I’ll check out next week:
Big Coffee:
Great Coffee & Cyclist Friendly:
Biggest coffee MUST be Hot Honey, Armstrong Street? Its a bucket
I think BBB and Brother Baba Budan are the same place. It was actually started as the same crew that opened St Ali in South Melbourne. You’ll see similarities fit out-wise. Awesome coffee and staff at both.
Oh, and BBB and Seven Seeds are the same folk. Drink lots of coffee and support both!
Criteria for my selection of coffee stop are:
- quality of coffee (not size – if the quality is good, I’ll have 2!)
- design of amenities – size and comfort level for sweaty or wet riders. (I don’t want to be squeezing in some velour upolstered booth with dim lighting where I can’t see my bike), enough area for safe storage of bikes
- quality of service – welcoming staff, quick service, rider-friendly
- range fo food – yummy, pseudo-health snacks to restore the energy levels.
It’s rare to get all of these in one spot!
Oh, yes! Attractiveness of staff goes without saying!
If hitting the North Western suburbs on your way up to Mt Macedon or any of the Northern Combine races up that way, stop into Strudels Cafe, 427 Keilor Rd. Niddrie (Essendon). Great coffee, fruit toast, muffins (sensational low fat muffin!), smoothies with protein powder and more. It’s a small shop with great ambience.
seven:am in Bay Street, Port Melbourne does great coffees, big or small alike.
Comments on this entry are closed.
{ 1 trackback }