Park Café
Park Café was located in the same Parkwood centre as Polish Nail Spa, and became part of my working life not long after Polish opened. The café launched in 2008 and had a strong foundation from the outset.
By 2009, after challenges with management retention, I was asked to step in and manage the café. At the time, it made intuitive sense. I was already present in the centre, understood the clientele instinctively, knew many of the staff, and was involved in other businesses within the precinct. Although I had long sworn I would never waitress again, I had always been drawn to the role a truly good café plays in a neighbourhood.
Park Café had many of the right ingredients. The food was excellent, the coffee delicious the menu well considered, and the café already had a strong reputation. While the décor was never quite to my taste, the core of the business was sound. What appealed most was what the café brought that Polish did not. Despite being next door, it attracted a far broader cross-section of people: creatives from the surrounding gallery strip, professionals from nearby Rosebank, and families whose rhythms differed from the regulars at Polish.
There was also the adrenaline. The breakfast rush was real and demanding, and there was something deeply satisfying about being at the centre of that machine, orchestrating pace, movement and flow. It was fast, physical and social in a way that felt alive.
That intensity, however, came at a cost. The energy required to sustain the pace was significant, and the staffing challenges were different and often more acute than those at Polish. Before eventually buying the café in 2011, not owning it outright created constraints around decision-making. In hindsight, lease and purchase terms were punitive, and cash flow in hospitality proved unforgiving. Without the predictability of an appointment-based business, quieter days, wastage and fixed costs created constant pressure.
Park Café delivered some of my most important professional lessons. It clarified that I am fundamentally entrepreneurial and do my best work when I have full control. It sharpened my understanding of cash flow, risk and margin, and affirmed something more personal: that I am good with people, intuitively attuned to taste, experience and atmosphere, and deeply aligned with food and hospitality. In contrast, the beauty focus of Polish, while successful, always felt slightly removed from my own interests.
Looking back, Park Café sits as a pivotal chapter. It deepened my understanding of place and routine, revealed the power and cost of being at the centre of daily life, and helped me recognise the kind of work that truly sustains me, and the kind that does not.
