Chamber 27 - Golden Delicious

Written By Gareth M.

Chamber 27 - Golden Delicious was the tea rooms / café. It was the chamber farthest from the front counter, sitting in the corner of the building backing onto Peacock Road and being overlooked by Chamber 25 - Emporer and Chamber 24 - Bartletts, while being connected to Chamber 18 - Winter Nelis via Chamber 28 - Garden.

The safe with original door before the renovations began. (1993-03)

Before the Packing House was renovated it had a safe in the back corner of what became the kitchen. During renovation this safe, owing to its solid concrete construction and reinforcement became the cool room for the tea room, and then café that followed.

When Chamber 27 was first opened up in 1993 it held the tea rooms, a designation that would remain on many of the signs around the Packing House. 

The tea rooms originally were the same proprietor that had been previously at the Moorooduc Antiques & Old Wares where Sheila and Gerard Martland had previously been. 

This tea room operator had agreed to come to the Packing House for 12 months, to transition from Mooroooduc to Tyabb before they retired. 

From 1994 through to the late-2002 the 'Tyabb PackingHouse Tea Rooms' operated in Chamber 27.

In late-2002 the chamber was expanded, nearly doubling the space, covering all of Chamber 26's neighbouring wall and removing the window that had looked out into the garden, making for an odd opening overviewing the cafe. During the planning stages for this extension the local council made certain protestations concerning the heritage nature of the building. This was despite making a case against the renovation of the building as a whole in 1993, the council at that time had considered the building at its end of life and should have been torn down.

View from Chamber 24 - Bartletts through the (former window) down into café area. (Photo: 2021-01-08)

Elixir launched their new cafe on the 20th February 2003, it was launched as a licensed café restaurant (the first licensed café for the Packing House) and opened officially by Greg Hunt MP.

Prior to the launch Elixir made the chamber their own, removing the large ceiling fans which had kept the space cool on hot days and elected instead to install cinema lights (as this was the interior design trend in the early 2000s). Elixir also painted the walls a soft purple. During the latter years of their operation they added accoutrements to their operation selling kitchen-adjacenement items such as decorative kitchen items and small kitchenware from beside their counter (in front of the entrance to the toilets and the door to Chamber 28 - Garden). They operated a cafe in this chamber until 27th October 2013.

Then during the last days of October this chamber was restored and repainted. Restoring the lighting to simple down lights and fluorescent lights and removing the cinema-style lighting.

By 1st November 2013 it was freshly painted and ready for new operators. 

The Hart of Tyabb opened shortly after this, with the proprietor of this business intending to make it their own. The proprietor of The Hart of Tyabb had previously operated a bakery, but wanted a business that they could use to enjoy their retirement and see their grandchildren more often. 

At the start the proprietor began the café with plans of differentiation and change, for example they initially started with baked-fresh bread rolls for a number of the items on the menu.

In the initial months of operation the proprietor continued with grand plans for the café, such as implementing a costly and complicated tablet ordering system for staff / kitchen (Elixir previously had used paper and notepad). 

However other plans; such as in 2016 barbecuing meats in the car park nearby or in Chamber 28 - Garden earned them the ire of those in the nearby chambers for the smell, and then the Packing House's management for the danger it posed to the building itself. The Packing House being a 100+ year old building and being composed of timber with wood shavings as the insulator had quite a cautious attitude to anything fire-related.

The Hart of Tyabb menu in 2016 (Photo: 2016-07-03)

In the latter years The Hart of Tyabb attempted some other experiments to drive or keep people in the café, one such thing, copied from the Village was to have live musicians playing within the space. Unfortunately for everyone around Chamber 27 it was not designed for acoustics, indeed later operators in the chamber would add soft furnishings and rugs to attempt to deaden the sound somewhat.

The Hart of Tyabb did none of this, and it earned them much annoyance from Book Browser who was subjected to this experiment with Chambers 24 - Bartletts and Chamber 25 - Emporer overlooking the café.

In 2018, their final year of operation cracks were beginning to show in the operation of the business.

For a day in September there was no coffee, as the only barista didn't come in and the proprietor didn't know how to operate the espresso machine, so it was tea only for anyone who visited. One dealer demanded a plunger and made their own coffee.

The Hart of Tyabb ceased trading at the end of October 2018 as their lease was not renewed.

Following The Hart of Tyabb vacating Chamber 27 the Packing House's management undertook a renovation of the café space. This renovation began immediately at the end of October 2018.

By the 3rd November 2018 the floor of the café had been re-sanded and polished with a water-based finish, leading to a lighter stain for the wood flooring than previously seen. 

During this time the kitchen space also underwent a thorough deep clean.

Following the rejuvenation of the café a period of transition followed while a new café tenant was sought that properly suited the Packing House and the Chamber 27 space. 

The operators of the next café began in early December 2018, initially on a trial period, which was extended throughout the following year until the end of July 2019. 

This new café operator didn't have a name for the cafe, but became known as the "buffet cafe", as for a time they offered a buffet-style breakfast and lunch.

Café Nostalgia. (Photo: 2019-09-08)

The operation of the cafe during this time was something of an exploration for the new proprietors; they were first-time café operators. They had worked in the hospitality industry for a number of years, however this was the first time they were self-employed operators of a café business, and this was seen as an opportunity for learning and education. Following consideration of the future in July 2019 they moved onto other opportunities.

For August 2019 the chamber and café space was unoccupied.

That was until Café Nostalgia arrived in mid-September, promising a new menu and different styles of food. This new café operator was a mother and son team, both of whom had worked in hospitality before. They opened Café Nostalgia on the 5th September 2019.

On their first day there was great excitement, as the café space had been closed for a number of weeks between the previous café operators leaving and themselves beginning operating. 

On public holidays the café was often closed leaving only the Red Rattler in The Village available. (Photo: 2022-09-22)

Unfortunately this success, and some operating frictions between the mother and son team was too much for their somewhat volatile relationship and after three days they decided to close their café. It was somewhat abrupt and unexpected when this happened. 

This chamber was again quiet and unoccupied until the 17th October 2019 when The Little Pig Cafe opened.

Unfortunately this new café launched into the tumultuous years that were the COVID-19 pandemic.

On 28th November 2020 The Little Pig Cafe transitioned into the Bowerbird Cafe, which operated within Chamber 27 through until February 2023, when their tenancy ended. 

Replacing the Bowerbird Cafe was a new café, which after some renovation, including a range of new commercial kitchen appliances, plus re-painting and interior design of the space to showcase a full rejuvenation it re-opened as 'The Packing House Café Galleria’ on 1st April 2023. 

Men’s toilets with mis-matched tiles. (2014-04-11)

Toilets

This chamber also held the only public-facing toilets inside the Packing House. This was often the first destination for people when visiting the Packing House, making them breeze through the bulk of the building in order to reach the the café and (more importantly to them) the toilets. Although within the main building there were two sets of toilets, one for general public and one staff located in Chamber 4 - Newton.

The toilets consisted of a small vestibule area; a women's toilets (left), men's toilets (middle) and a disabled toilet (right). 

When the Packing House first opened these toilets were all on a septic tank, whose outflow was out beside the Tyabb Grain Store. Unfortunately during busy periods the septic tank was not able to handle the amount of patronage the toilets saw, with the ground becoming boggy very quickly. 

In the early 2000s the sewer was connected to these toilets and café kitchen (along with grease trap) mostly solving this issue. The staff toilets in Chamber 4 remained on a septic tank, the expense of connecting those not deemed necessary given the small patronage from dealers they saw.

The toilets had been changed somewhat throughout the Packing House's history, when Chamber 27 was expanded in 2002 it altered how the toilets reached, they were located down a corridor prior to the Chamber's expansion. Additionally in the men's toilets they had originally contained a 'trough'-style urinal, which was upgraded to two individual-type urinals. This necessitated re-tiling some of the flooring where the trough-type urinal had been, unfortunately there were none of the original dark green coloured tiles left from the original tiling of the toilets; leading to some mis-matched (although still green) tiles in the men's toilets. 

Note: Images have dates written in YEAR-MONTH-DAY format, as there is a mix of mediums of images with some having more exact dates than others.

More information

  • This chamber had an internal phone mounted on the wall between the ‘front area’ and the ‘kitchen area’, it could be used to contact the Front Counter.

  • The tables and chairs in the cafe were provided by the Packing House’s management, providing a constant in interior design throughout the years.

  • This chamber could be reached via a ramp from Chamber 25 - Emperor, stairs from Chamber 24 - Bartletts, or through Chamber 28 - Garden and into Chamber 18 - Winter Nelis from there there was also a ramp. From that area that was an additional ramp from Chamber 19 - Packham into Chamber 13 - William, or a set of 2 stairs through Chambers 14 and 15 - Display and Museum into Chamber 10 - Crofton.

    • The ramp from Chamber 25 (which was approved when the Packing House opened, post-renovation) was often noted to be quite steep by wheelchair users and people pushing prams. Often requiring the ‘brakes to be on’ when going down and some strength going up.

  • This chamber was the most renovated space at the Packing House. The kitchen was renovated in 1993 in preparation for the new ‘tea rooms’, and then it was renovated again in 2002 for its transformation into a café. The floors in this chamber have been sanded multiple times and the walls painted several times also.

  • For most of the Packing House’s history it had been a rule that food and drink was contained to this chamber, with no takeaway drinks or food being allowed at all for concern over the other dealers’ wares in the building from food and drink. This policy was relaxed by the Packing House’s management during the COVID-19 period as at some points during that era there was no sit-down service allowed in cafés.

External links

Other obscurities

Front Counter | Front office | Lay-by room | Internal phone system | Fire and emergency systems | Power, Heating and Cooling

Gareth M.
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Chamber 26 - Sheppards Delight