Most employees like to bring a little of home to their office desk, however over at inner city mental health: a haven of devout coffee drinkers chose Cafe 54 as their decorating inspiration. Keeping this 54 paraphernalia in mind, after a recent suggestion to personalise our take-away drink trays by one of our regulars.

Cafe 54 now invites you to participate in our 2009 Designer Take-Away competition.

Designer Competition [PDF]

Rules of play (Terms and conditions):

1. Entries must be submitted by 3pm on the 29th of July 2009. Entries must be submitted with completed registration forms. Individual and corporate entries are acceptable. 2. All entries must include a Capri Cafe 54 cardboard drink tray. No McDonald’s soft serve tray’s. 3.Drink trays will only be provided upon purchase of 3 or more take-away coffees. 4. Winners will be notified by phone. The winning entry will be photographed and framed in the Cafe 54 Hall of Fame. 5. The office catering will expire by December 31st and includes coffee for up to 12 people. The morning tea is avilable in-house or take-away.

Keep an eye out for upcoming entries as we will also post pictures online as we recieve them.

[Update: This post is now made public for all to view]

With November coming to an end, Jessie came in on Friday giving us a hand with meters of garland, tinsel, candy canes, wreathes and sticky spots. The finished result you will have to come in and see for yourself, but I think we are ready for the month of December.

Well before we forget Novemember we will take a look back.

November started with the Dandy Warhols all the way from Portland. It was good to see some more musicians who like coffee almost as much as us. The Warhols have their coffee big and black. They visited for around 3 days, with a daily jumbo long black in the morning and food during they day. On departure they signed a coffee bag to add to our collection and thanked us for the great stay in Perth. Dale later caught up with them again in Melbourne while checking out the cafe atmosphere.

Check out our photos from Melbourne here:

Melbourne Cafe Pictures

Well Dale returned from Melbourne and headed straight into training for the Barista Championships. Dale and Michael, owners of Cafe 54  judged Day One of the championships, alongside names such as David Makin, the current Australian Barista Champion. Competitor Mark Chandler, came out victorious, impressing the judges with a very polished routine. Mark is a trainer at 5 senses and with the rest of the crew walking away with first place in all three competitions, this reflects the passion the team has for coffee as a work of art. Dale competed on Day Two in the Latte Art Competion walking away with 2nd place for his creativity and originality. Dale presented three designs: a tulip, the scorpion’s tale and a swan. Audience and judges alike commented on the swan, which stood out as a design that hadn’t been seen before. The swan has become a favourite request amongst customers since news of the competition.

Cafe 54 also competed in the cupping competition however time became a downfall with Angela from Epic and Matt from Abstact Gourmet coming through with a faster time and taking 2nd and 3rd place. First place went to the very man who trained us from the beginning Ben Bicknell from 5 senses came away with a outstanding 7/8 cups in just under 4 minutes.

So with hundreds of photos from the day and training, we will sort through and post them soon.

I would like to show everyone our intense training that our new barista’s undergo, here is our latest Cafe 54 edition at the Synesso under the intense watchful eye of Barista Shaylee.

We thought you’d appreciate the chesire cat suit uniform for the in-training.

All serious matters aside, the past few weeks has been an array of new faces and flavours.

Dale is hard at work, with tweaking our blend and experimenting with all different single origins, we are enjoying the ristretto and espresso’s per minute and everyone at home is quite wired as well.

The new faces I mentioned are quite recognizable. On the 29th of August, what was called a powerhouse of rock four bands: Disturbed, Behind Crimson Eyes, P.O.D and Alter Bridge (a fusion of the disbanded Creed members and the lead singer of Mayfield Tour) came to Perth to perform at challenge stadium. We were a wireless connection and a coffee every hour for manager Steven Wood and had mixed band members come in and out for breakfast, muffins and that most needed coffee. We arrived one morning at 7am to find Alter Bridge on our doorstep, already hooked onto the wireless and waiting for a cup of Cafe 54’s “joe”.

The next very familar face was Newton Faulkner, seen in The West Australian on Friday with a great review of a happy down to earth feel good redhead. We found Newton to be just that, feeding him and the band with breakfast and coffee for two days, they loved the stay and coffee. Our specialty banana bread was a definate hit as well.

Yet another autograph to add to our coming wall of fame.

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Being a West Aus Cafe we thought we’d add that touch to our latte art with a coffee swan.

Over the past couple of weeks Dale has been working on this free-pour swan design, with a rosetta body and a heart for a head this one has been quite popular with the customers.

Another new look for 54 are the breakfast mushrooms, button mushrooms stuffed with a tomato and onion filling grilled to perfection. Garnished with parmesan and basil they add that extra flavour to our cooked full breakfast. Also available as a side with eggs on toast.

Hi all,

Just to let you know your beloved latte art page has returned, it was in the process of being updated. (This was before the baby, wedding and engagement.) So with Jordan and I back from our honeymoon, Hannie adjusted well in our family and wedding planning beginning for Shaylee and Luke we can get this show back on the road.

This is the first piccolo ristretto, Dale’s humble beginnings. With the old green benchtop:

How far he is come, great love heart. Nice bench too!

Though this one is uneven, I do like it,
I think it is the sonic the hedgehog edge that Jord’s got going on the left side

Dale’s latest project

Dale and Jord team up again. Excuse the sugars

Unknown artist – this is what our regular takaway guys miss.
Had to get a shot of this before the lid went on.

Dale’s 14 point pattern… his record is 18 points.

and this little guy to see you out.

Keep an eye out for the Latte Art headings for the next installement.
still got a fair amount to shuffle through.

Another update:

Hannah’s been busy lounging around and getting all dressed up for her Uncle and Aunty’s Wedding.

Unfortunately we didn’t make it to the Perth Barista Jam 08, it no wasn’t because we were ‘too cool to show up.’

http://abstractgourmet.com/2008/06/perth-barista-jam-wrap-up/

Well that’s the bad news the good news is most of the staff at 54 were at St John of God, Murdoch in a corridor outside the birthing suite. Dale and Jessie on Sunday the 8th of June at 5:16pm had a baby girl Hannah Marie Fewson.

She is adorable and well worth the wait! Now nicknamed ‘Hannie’ by her 21mnth cousin she came two weeks early, at a small 5lb12oz with a full head of hair . So mum and baby are well and came home yesterday, she was showered with gifts and hugs on her arrival. Including amongst this all ‘a coffee drinker in training’ bib and various amounts of size 00000 pink clothing.

Dale and Jessie send their thank you to all our regular coffee drinkers for the cards and gifts, they are well appreciated. For those who want more than the day to day update and single announcement photo we have displayed on our till here are a few more of Hannie Marie Fewson. Enjoy.

Well on that note, congratulations to Dale and Jessie and we’ll throw out a congrats to Jackson from Tiger Tiger. I will add that around 7:15pm on Sunday, an hour after this little doll was born Dale did make the comment

“I reckon we can still make the barista jam.”

Happy 1st Birthday 54

So it has been a year since Cafe 54 began, customers enjoyed their double stamp day and the free lollies just as a thank you for all that have supported us in this year. It has been a great year and we look forward to many more.

Now if you haven’t noticed there has been a menu update for the coming winter, these new dishes will keep you a bit warmer this winter and be sure to satisfy your tastebuds.

For the next two weeks we have a guest chef to create an amazing few dishes on Monday’s, we began today with an amazing Bolagnaise Ragu, which is a rich red wine, slow cooked mix of vegetables and tender steak that melts in your mouth accompanied by some of our handmade fetticine. This week only we will run the Rugu for the whole week as we can not let you miss this one. It is $7.95 takeaway and $9.50 inhouse. The dishes will likely change each monday so keep your eye out for these ones.

So at the end of the day as Dale emptied the portafilter to clean up he found a strange image drawn in coffee grounds, so this is the image as came not ‘etching’, this is exactly how it came. We might be able to sell it on Ebay to those devoted pac-man fans out there.

Gone are the days of tea leaf fortune telling Hello coffee grind, got any interpretations for us?

Hi everyone,
Hope you enjoyed your Anzac long weekend, here at 54 we were busy with the new member of our team – no Jessie hasn’t had the baby still another 2 months left now. Over the past few weeks now Michael known to all of us as ‘dad’ has been on his hands and knees creating yet another solid jarrah benchtop, this one is a simular design as the one on which our synesso sits, just a little lighter and smaller in length.

So dad now needs a bit of a break from the sanding, mineral turpentine and being on his knees from dawn to dusk to begin his next project – a jarrah outdoor dining table for home.

So first day in for the bench it has recieved some great appreciation, which we will be sure to pass on. For those of you who don’t know, not only is Michael the carpenter and owner of Cafe 54 but also he is the quality control. Earlier this year we attended the 2008 Western Australian Barista Championship held at the Perth Town Hall, just up the road from 54, dad competed for the first time and came in with 3rd place. To read a little about the championships check out the 5senses news:

Hot off the Roast – WA Barista Championships

To complement our new benchtop is our winter menu available in store this week and up online by the end of the week. Until then…

Keep an eye out for some more updates here on the 54 blog, including 54’s latest news of the folk rock singer Brandi Carlile who appeared a few weeks back while on tour with Maroon 5, promoting her album ‘The Story’.

The singer and her band appeared at 54 looking for what Phil, her guitarist dubbed the ‘addict’ and what they all settled for as the Tripiola. For those curious a tripiola according to the band is 3 espresso shots on ice. So when we came across some real coffee addicts we inquired about their origins – Seattle none other than the birth place of our own synessso! After some discussion with Dale on coffee and guitars he learned he was talking to rising musician Brandi Carlile and her band, Phil, Tim and Daxx. We contacted Caleb from 5senses to recommend some great coffee locations in Seattle they had of course already heard and frequently vistited such cafe’s even still the band stressed that Australia had some overall better coffee and 54’s blend was the best so far, with a coffee bag signed with ‘Cafe 54, Best Coffee in Oz’ looking to be framed and in store some time next week.

The guys were there for 2 days frequenting our cafe 3 times in one day back for some more coffee and inviting Dale and Jess on the friends list for the concert that night, Dale gladly took them up on their offer in exchange for the 54 travel mug : ). Tim assured Dale that when in Seattle for coffee research at the Synesso Factory he is welcome to stay and check out the Phil’s guitar collection. It was great having the guys there and they had a great time in Australia and look forward to their own tour back to Oz and will make sure to visit again. As for the concert Dale can tell you all about the awesome guitar work, I’ll just say they enjoyed Brandi’s set and even Jessie’s baby was giving a good ‘kick’ to the music.

For those who haven’t tried our ‘famous’ coffee make sure you make your way down and maybe even give Brandi’s tripiola a go.