Popular Sydney cafe Three Blue Ducks is opening its fifth diner, this time in Melbourne. It will overlook a 2.1-hectare surfing lagoon.

Three Blue Ducks hatched out of a love of surfing and organic produce when it opened its first tiny Bronte cafe and adjoining kitchen garden in 2010. It champions ethical and sustainably sourced ingredients, and now has four restaurants and cafes, in Sydney, Byron and Brisbane. This summer it will open its first permanent Melbourne location at Urbnsurf Melbourne, the soon-to-open Tullamarine surf park.

“We are really stoked that Three Blue Ducks has decided to be our partner for food and beverage at Urbnsurf Melbourne,” says Andrew Ross, founder of Urbnsurf. “They make amazing food, but also the guys, and most of the staff, are all surfers. So it really was a bit of a perfect match for us.”

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The 250-person restaurant’s deck will overlook the surfing lagoon. “You can see right down the barrels where people are getting tubed … I think that will be pretty cool,” says Three Blue Ducks co-founder Mark LaBrooy. “It’s going to be the sort of place where you can grab a beer or have a drink and watch the surfing”.

The menu is still in progress, but similar to its Roseberry restaurant, the team is installing a woodfired oven to make sourdough pizzas for the post-wave-riding crowd.

“It’s going to be quite physical,” says LaBrooy. “We want to create a menu that satiates that level of hunger.”

Like at the original Bronte location, LaBrooy says a kitchen garden is on the cards, for phase two of the new venue. Until then he has started doing Victorian research trips to scope out local suppliers.

“[The team at Three Blue Ducks] are really focused on sustainable food and ethical sourcing of food, supporting local producers and limiting waste,” says Ross. “Which as surfers, and for us as a business, is really important.”

The space itself will be no-frills. “It’s a shed,” says LaBrooy, who plans to install a fireplace and timber furnishings to warm up the large space.

“We can’t wait for them to bring a little bit of Byron Bay to Melbourne when we open in the summer and start pumping out our first waves,” says Ross.

Three Blue Ducks at Urbnsurf opens this summer.

urbnsurf.com