If You Say So

If You Say So sits inside a tiny historic building on Gailey Road, a well-known shop in the area that’s been many things over the years. It was a tea house in the early 1900s. And more recently, a detached shopfront belonging to the newly built apartments next door.

These days it’s a neat little espresso bar by Eli Rami and Sam Holman, who are also behind Black Lab Coffee Roasters, as well as Paddington wine bar, Noir.

They duo have taken what they’ve learnt from opening cafes like Blackout in Paddington and The New Black (they’ve since sold the latter) and applied it here. The food offering is concise and mostly geared towards takeaway: breakfast muffins, house-baked croissants, Doughluxe doughnuts and Butterbing cookies.

The Black Lab’s Platinum blend is the house espresso, but you can also grab cold-drip coffee, batch brew on tap (customers can help themselves to a cup from the counter and pour it themselves) and bottled soft drinks.

Holman did most of the fit-out himself and built the large terrazzo-topped coffee bench. There’s a bright colour scheme with terracotta pink walls and pops of greenery, while the exterior of the building has been painted white with some dark blue highlights. A handful of tables are located inside and outside, with views out to the lush Jack Cook Memorial Park across the road.