G'day. If you're new here, and you are interested in the Melbourne food and drink scene you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or the email newsletter below. Thanks for visiting and enjoy eating and drinking in Melbourne. Cheers.
Look around you. There is probably one similar near you right now. This is the New Zealand Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc ( the most popular and ubiqitous white wine in Australia) of cafe chairs.
I keep tripping up over it everywhere. This picture was taken in Hamilton (worth avoiding). I’ve seen it in the Yarra Valley. It’s spread like a rash through my home suburb St Kilda - Mirka at Tolarno, Banff, Spuntino etc.
Are we doomed to sit on generic chairs while we enjoy the sunshine outside our favourite boutique restaurants and cafes?
Does anybody know where it comes from or what it’s background is?
Could it be an alien life form colonising this planet? Or perhaps a communist plot?
Any sightings outside of Victoria or Australia?
Popularity: 7% [?]
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
That probably means it’s just become cheaper than the previous cheapest chair in the entire world, the poly chair. (Actually, I despise that table more than the chair, although I can understand your hatred of it in the situation above. The cheap bamboo legs would catch and flex on the horrible Besser brick floor and almost throw you off onto the ground when you try to move it in or out.
Hint: use the chair to assault the waiter when he’s been admiring his hairstyle in the mirrored side of the espresso machine for too long. The chair would be light enough not to do any damage, but provide you with all the drama necessary for undivided attention for the rest of the night.
My parents have a photo of me sitting - propped up like a doll - on one in Hong Kong circa 1968 at The Peak Cafe.
Pah - in Brunswick we have to sit on upturned milk crates in the winter time, with the plastic grille pressing into our bony arses as we sip on our soy chai lattes outside.
Harden the f*** up!
Never seen a chair like that here!
If you are tripping over it, why not open your eyes and step around it? At the same time, why not realise you are being ripped off by the prices? Everything in Australia is overpriced. Is the food there really worth $30+ for a main course? I don’t think so, especially as the cost price is is under $10 - that means the service and atmosphere is worth more than the food and service. Which, from my experiences in Melb is a ripoff. Thank Christ other countries aren’t doing the same as Melbourne in terms of ripoffness. (well, some of them, anyway!) See the prices O/S and then compare them to the rubbish service the Aussies provide. I am ashamed to be an Aussie.
They haven’t made it to the ‘burbs yet.
Maybe they’re gathering strength in town, before the creep, all herpes-like, up High Street Road?
Thanks for the warning.
I’ll let you know if they’re sighted out my way.
My “burb has just made it to about circa 1975, and we still have moulded polyplastic numbers. Although the occasional Naugahyde banquet can be seen in the mo’ trendy boo-teeecks.
Poor little Nauga’s.. to be slaughtered for something as trivial as a seat for swilling lattes.
Meanwhile, **insert Monty Python Lancastrian Voice**
Milk crates? Sheer luxury! When I were a wee sprog, me da’ gave us all a picket stake and said “here, jam this up yer ar$e”
KH, maybe if I keep tripping I won’t need to use the chair on the waiter. I will admittheyare beterthan the old version.
Sticky, I guessed they came from that part of the world. maybe there is a new cheaper manufacturer in Vietnam now.
Ken, I’l go right now and sit on the cold concrete steps at Il Fornaio.
Kalyn, you’re lucky.
Bob, add metaphor to your vocab. If you think local food at $30 a main is a rip-off you are deluded and have little knowledge of the economics. With rent, food and wage inflation prices here will rise a lot higher. Try Sudney for the $40, $50 or $60 main.
PG, that’s now. I once sat on t’wallpaper scraper. (Then caught a bus to casualty with blood dripping down leg). How’s about when they make it your way we arrange a lynching party?
HAHA - so glad you’ve made my pet hate public! It’s been irritating my friends and me for a number of months. What ticks me off about the chair in particular, is that it’s faux bamboo! The tiny dark lines are painted on to give it an air of…I dunno…sophistication? Or are they really just panda bait. hmmm and grrr.
Rosemary, exactly. Just had an email that one’s been spotted in Paris (That’s Paris, France).
I have seen this chair all too often, but it has not taken over my hood yet (Carlton). However, I know that I hate it because every time I wear a playsuit, it leaves a very distinct and hideous cross hatched mark on the back of my upper thighs and arse which makes me look like I have deforned cellulite.
These chairs were first bought to Victoria by the Zampellis group about ten years ago to re-create an ersatz Neoplolitan ‘feel’ for their restaurants of Greco-Italio persuasion.
Since then there number have proliferated like introduced pestilence finding purchase in any outdoor venue vainly simulating a similat Euro bonhomie.
They should be immediately combusted upon discovery by all patrons.
As the cinders die down, a simple explanation for the performance due to a wayward form of Tourettes should ease the tension, failing that tell ‘em that Mordialloc is not Dago Sur Mer
they’re nasty mass-produced versions of the french bistro chair. Lovely in it’s original setting and materials (rattan or wicker I think) but pure design crime in fade-proof plastic and on the wrong continent.
Jess,I know what will I do in my hotpants in summer.
Gobbler/Anthea, I can’t believe I just saw some at Siglo - the Super Club’s so-called cool rooftop bar. Actually, now I see why they are so familar - from Paris. It’s that plastic that offends.
just saw some in a cafe in plam cove far north Queensland