Bobby Stop Stealing Our Camping Chairs Has One Goal: Do the Opposite of Every Melbourne Cafe

When you enter Bobby Stop Stealing Our Camping Chairs – Bobby, for short – you could be greeted by a live band, art installation or DJ. Or even co-owners Michael Teng and Young Lee walking around the counter to dap you up like an old friend. The chaos is by design, although there’s nothing contrived about it. Everything the cafe does mirrors Teng and Lee’s personalities.

“We think people should get their energy in the morning not just from caffeine, but from their environment,” Teng says. “So we wanted to create a space where you might get jolted awake at first – you never really know what will happen when you visit us, and that’s an exciting way to start your day.”

The concept was also shaped by necessity: Bobby sits in a tiny space wedged into a corner of Southern Cross Station with space for one bench inside and a handful of camping chairs on the footpath. 

“It means we have to draw a lot of attention to ourselves, so we do that with music, art and just generally being outgoing,” Teng says. “Plus, it keeps things really cheap for us and allows us to pass savings onto the customer.”

The savings are significant – Bobby sells $4 St Ali coffee and $4 ceremonial-grade matcha (you can purchase the latter by the litre if you ask for “the Emily”, a serve named after the first person daring enough to order it). There’s no food menu for now – another factor that helps keep costs down.

The pair also saved money by leasing an empty space that had been sitting vacant for more than a year and, instead of investing in a fit-out, they painted the walls and built the interior bench, island and shelving themselves. Then there are the camping chairs, which Teng says are cheap, eye-catching and add to Bobby’s mission to snap you out of your morning malaise. They’re also symbolic of the friendship between him and Lee.

“We met at a time in both our lives when we had been travelling a lot and seeking a bit more connection and purpose,” Teng says. “We got chatting at a party, and after a couple of bottles of soju we realised we had a similar mindset and sense of humour. Because camping chairs aren’t fixed in place, they reflect where we both were in our lives when we decided to open this space. Plus they’re just fun.”

For Teng and Lee, that’s an important point of difference. Once the pair decided to open a cafe, they adopted one underlying ethos: do the opposite of every cafe in Melbourne.

“There are so many great cafes in Melbourne, but we both felt that they can be a bit transactional, a bit too polished and, to be honest, a bit too expensive,” Teng says. “That drove all our decisions here. Instead of nice matching furniture, we can just make the space feel more like a share house. Instead of a nice outdoor setting, we can chill on some camping chairs. Instead of music playing over the speakers, we can just get a live band on a random Tuesday morning. And, of course, the coffee has to be affordable if people are going to get it every day.”

The cafe’s chaos extends to its social media. Teng and Lee’s most popular posts are videos captured on their doorbell camera, where passers-by are encouraged to leave a video note. And from the beginning, the pair agreed that the venue name should be as long as possible “so that it looks ridiculous on Google Maps”. All of these choices are designed to make you pause for a moment to take stock of what you’re looking at.

“Most people are on autopilot during their commute – they stop at their usual cafe with the catchy, one-word name and order a coffee without speaking to anyone,” Teng says. “Bobby snaps you out of it. You see these orange chairs, you see how cheap the coffee is, you walk in and the two of us scream ‘Good morning!’ at you while a guy is playing saxophone in the corner. It’s a bit of a shock to the system, but we just want to energise people and spark some conversation and connection.”

Bobby Stop Stealing Our Camping Chairs
Shop 9/99 Spencer Street, Docklands
No phone

Hours
Mon to Fri 7am–4pm
Sat 8am–4pm

bybobby.com.au
@bybobbyau