Cafe Gummo | Milparinka Satellite Site:

23/03/2020 to 02/07/2020

“We got really excited about the idea of the space still being used. Especially in a community sense. And it's been a great help for us too, because they've helped us pay rent for the building as well. We thought we could help them out, but they're actually helping us as much as well.” -lilly

Interview with: Sean and Lilly, Owners of Cafe Gummo

Engagement with Moreland

Cafe Gummo hosted a Satellite Site for Milparinka. Milparinka is a community centre based in Brunswick that supports people with disabilities.

Can you tell me a bit about yourselves and Cafe Gummo?

• Lilly

Yes. Well we are the owners of Cafe Gummo. We started Cafe Gummo only a bit over a year ago. And before that, Sean and I did a lot of things. We were working years and years in hospitality, but also have an artistic background. Sean was part of several bands touring as a musician. I was working as an actress. At some point I just thought about what I'd do in the future. So ideas started to grow to maybe do something together. A project where we can also combine all our different interests we have, not just in the arts, but also politically..We have always been community minded and very social people. 

• Sean

We also like bars and gigs too. It's a place that all those things we like really can intersect. And it was like, “okay, I guess we're running a bar or a venue or a cafe?”. We kind of made it all those things at Cafe Gummo. 

What kind of events/ activities would be held at the bar before the pandemic?

• Lilly

We had all sorts of gigs. We had many more live gigs than we initially intended to have when we first started. It really exploded! We had three to five gigs per week, though we only open five days a week. We had karaoke. It was really a hit before as well. So that was the entertainment part.  Other than that, we started to have a free shop on Sundays. People would donate clothes, so it would work like a clothes swap slash free shop….We also had a soup kitchen in the space Mondays and Tuesdays. They would use the kitchen when we were closed to cook for people in need. It was also used as a rehearsal space on one of the days as well.

• Sean 

It was nice knowing that even when we're closed, the space was useful for something. It wasn't just dead air.  We never anticipated so much happening in the space. Though I guess we created the first kind of environment, and then people came to us going, "Hey, can I do this? Would you be interested in helping out with this?", and so it just grew from there.

We also do a lot of fundraising and host fundraisers for people. And that's usually left-winged causes. We did a drive during the fire crisis. We also have a tip jar that goes to indigenous organizations. That's not just us, but all the staff we had voluntarily giving their tips to different indigenous causes each month. A lot of the fundraising efforts are actually the people we've already attracted to the space who then have decided that they're going to donate the profits of the gig to whatever cause we're donating to. It's not always coming from us, but we're facilitating a space where people can do fundraisers. 

First stage restrictions were implemented in Australia on the 23rd of March 2020. When did you both decide to shut down the bar?

• Sean

It all happened pretty fast!

• Lilly

We had to stretch it out till the day where we actually had to officially close, because we wouldn't have been able to support ourselves. There were rumours spreading, if you close earlier, you might not get any compensation from the government. Which may have only been a rumour. So we decided to just keep on going till the very end, till they tell us to shut down. 

• Sean

It was kind of bizarre... In terms of...people stop coming. Each day there'd be less people coming in, and the people who were coming in, some people's lives had just collapsed. The emotional intensity of....you just felt like something was deeply wrong. Even bartenders that we were friends with from up the street, they'd come in one night and have a few drinks and they'd be saying, "Oh, we're going to stick this out till they tell us to close" and we found out the next day at like 1:00 PM Somebody says, "Oh, that bar up the road , they're closed." And we're like, "That's not what they said last night". I think a lot of people were in shock. 

How did Milparinka get in contact with you to use your space as a Satellite Site during lockdown? 

• Sean

One of the people from Milparinka previously had played gigs at the bar. A few times. 

• Lilly

We became friends.

• Sean

They approached us when things were looking down, and they needed a smaller space because of the number of restrictions. I believe that they usually do everything in one larger area. Though they had to split the groups and find smaller spaces to move people and prevent any potential impact of contagion.

• Lilly

They approached us which was great! We got really excited about the idea of the space still being used. Especially in a community sense. And it's been a great help for us too, because they've helped us pay rent for the building as well. We thought we could help them out, but they're actually helping us as much as well. 

We wouldn't have been able to go away if this space wouldn't have been looked after like that. So that would've given us a headache. We had to move interstate because we weren't able to finance our living space.

• Sean

We had to move out of our flat because we couldn't afford to pay double rent both on our business property and personal property. And so we retreated to a family property in the countryside. 

When you were in Melbourne, were you ever at the Cafe whilst Milparinka were utilising the space? 

• Sean

No, In fact we have to deliberately keep it seperate.

• Lilly

When we were still in Melbourne, we had to make sure that no-one else was in the space when Milparinka was in.

What's Cafe Gummo’s current situation? 

• Lilly

Two weeks ago we thought we'll be getting ready to go back by now. We thought by now that we would be coming back, because Milparinka said that they might have to move out soon. And then it looked like restrictions were easing. I'm like, "okay, well then maybe we can slowly get ready to go back". And then boom! This happened again. More cases and a second spike. We are really worried about there being another proper knockdown happening again. So we'll wait for now and see how everything is going to go in the next couple of weeks...

Instagram: @cafegummo_bar

Location: 711 High Street Thornbury