Vada Cafe

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Vada Cafe: 465 Nepean Highway, Frankston, 9783 6423

My score: 3/5

It’s a still, blue-sky autumn morning but the Frankston waterfront is dead quiet and shockingly deficient in cafe latte. The buzz is one street back at Vada Cafe, where the view (six lanes of traffic and a row of real estate offices) doesn’t compete but the welcome and the coffee certainly does.

The non-profit cafe is owned and run by the Gateway Family Church at nearby Seaford; its mission is to raise awareness and funds for children’s education and medical services in Papua New Guinea. A casual punter wouldn’t necessarily become aware of the raison d’etre simply by eating here. There’s a TV on the wall running looped explanatory footage, and there’s PNG basketry on display, but there’s no hard sell.

A strong customer service ethos is obvious: one of the owners tells me that they strive to ensure every customer leaves happier than they arrived. Staff pledge not to judge the grumpy or the rude because there might be compelling and sad reasons behind the behaviour. In practice, this means many smiles, a lot of ‘the usual?’ and an unsneering attitude to half-strength skinny lattes and other diluted decoctions. Friendly and willing is the overriding emphasis; expert trails a little behind.

Coffee is organic and fair trade from Goroka, a PNG town that’s also a focus of the church’s wellbeing programs. My latte is okay. Classic all-day breakfasts and light lunches pack a decent punch. The vegetarian breakfast is generous and tasty: zucchini and carrot fritters are served with dollops of pesto and hummus, fried mushrooms and tomato. The basic white toast is a disappointment but overall the dish tastes as though the cook cares. Lunches include frittatas, tarts, salads and pies, all made here. The range changes but I hope it will always include the lasagne pie. When the kitchen team came up with that stroke of pastry-encased genius they probably felt similar to Isaac Newton with that apple and gravity stuff. Lasagne in a pie! Of course! The idea somewhat outgunned the execution – I want pasta and white sauce not just the ragu – but great inventions often require refinement.

Sweets are good especially the chocolate banana muffin, a lemon slice that contains only as much starch as is strictly necessary to keep all the fat and sugar in suspension, and a coffee-macadamia slice that made a great afternoon pick-me-up. I’m not a believer but I believe I’ll have another.

See their website.

More social enterprise:

Madcap Cafe, Fountain Gate Shopping Centre, Fountain Gate, 8794 9669
Also at Dandenong Plaza and Westfield Geelong, these cafes provide training and opportunities for people experiencing a mental illness.

STREAT Cafe, 307 Racecourse Road, Flemington, 9372 3288
Social enterprise Streat steers disadvantaged youths towards employment in its cafes here and in the city.

Kinfolk Cafe, 673 Bourke Street, Melbourne, 0423 229 953
Volunteers staff this warm-hearted cafe and customers help decide which proportion of profits go to development projects in Africa, Palm Island and Melbourne.

First published in The Age, May 6, 2012