It didn’t take long for Fresh [email protected] Organic Café to make an impact – within six months of opening it had been named the Australian-New Zealand Fair Trade Café of the Year.
It was quite an achievement for owner Yvens de Camargo and his team, and a café that began life as a coffee cart before graduating to a shipping container in White St Mall.
“I had to wheel the cart out every morning at 5.30am and wheel it back in at 6pm every night, which was tough when it was cold and wet,” Yvens says. “The container was a progression from the cart.”
Yvens opened Fresh [email protected] Organic Café on July 19, 2014, to educate people about coffee and pursue the Fair Trade ethic – “I saw what was happening overseas and wanted to do the right thing,” he says. It quickly became a magnet for artists, who would exhibit there for no charge, as well as coffee aficionados drawn to as many as seven varieties on offer.
Not content with just the one café, however, Yvens also runs Charlwood’s Café at Frankston Library as well as his own not-for-profit record label, Fresh [email protected] Sounds.
Music plays a major role in Yvens’s life – he has played in bands in his native Brazil and in Australia after arriving here in 1978 - and he encourages musicians to perform in the mall during the Wells St markets every Thursday. He also puts on monthly concerts outside the library, having spent almost $10,000 on instruments performers can use, and is hoping to arrange a concert at the end of the year that he will record on a CD that the musicians involved can use to promote themselves.
“I’d like to see more entertainment to liven up the city, to bring more people out and create more foot traffic, and I’d like to see people less fortunate given the chance to show their talents.”
FRESH [email protected] ORGANIC CAFÉ
A: White St Mall, Frankston
CHARLWOOD’S CAFÉ
A: 60 Playne St, Frankston
M: 0437 480 253
FB: https://www.facebook.com/freshstartorganicafe/