Homestyle coming to city fringe

A popular Claremont cafe is taking its home-cooked meals to a captive market on the outskirts of the CBD.

The Claremont Quarter is proving too small a market for Homestyle Food Bar, which is embarking on plans to expand to another outlet – this one with a liquor licence – in Northbridge.

The cafe has become something of an institution in Claremont, having been established in 1975 at the old Claremont Arcade on Bayview Terrace.

But owner Tony Brackenreg said it was likely the new cafe would have a fresh identity to match its location at the bottom of an apartment building to be built on Stirling Street.

Mr Brackenreg and his business partner, Ross Cushion, have entered an agreement with Stirling Capital to open at the apartments developer’s Verdant project when it’s completed in early 2017.

The new offering will include an alfresco area and likely a liquor licence, subject to approval, but the concept of home-cooked meals would remain.

“Everything we cook is all traditional, made from scratch, and that won’t be changing,” Mr Brackenreg told Business News.

“We’ve been doing it for a long time, our recipes are very old and we’ve been making them for years and years.

“We’ve got such a huge following and I don’t think it will be long for people to pick up on the quality of the stuff that we’ll put out there and what we’re doing.”

Mr Brackenreg said he and Mr Cushion had been considering opening a new venue for about 18 months, during lease negotiations at Claremont Quarter, which resulted in a five-year lease.

“We thought about it then that it might be actually easier to move the shop, and started looking around at premises,” he said.

Mr Brackenreg said the location at Stirling Street was a familiar one for him, having been a police officer for 35 years stationed at Curtin House on Beaufort Street and attending Christian Brothers College on Stirling Street in Highgate before that.

Along with Verdant, Stirling Capital is planning a 168-apartment development at 108 Stirling Street, while Blackburne Property Group is advancing a 137-dwelling project on the corner of Stirling and Aberdeen streets.

All of those projects are expected to provide a captive market for the new Homestyle cafe to tap into.

“The biggest thing was the location,” Mr Brackenreg said.

“You have 18 storeys of apartments above you, so you already have a market there for weekend breakfasts and wholesome meals that are reasonably priced, so we know we can home in on them.

“Hopefully those people who live in the apartments will also service us during the evenings.”

Stirling Capital director Luke Reinecke said an experienced operator would be a solid selling point for potential residents at the Verdant project, which was targeted at city workers.

“Grabbing a coffee on the way to work or a meal on the way home will be a daily ritual,” he said.