Even Jerry Seinfeld Couldn’t Get Into This Melbourne Cafe

A normal cafe would have stories about celebrity visits, perhaps some kind of photo wall. Marios isn’t normal. Its most enduring celebrity story is about the famous American comedian who never arrived. 

It’s 1998, a busy Saturday morning, maybe 9am. The phone rings in the kitchen and a cook turns from the bacon pans to pick up the receiver. With the sizzle in his left ear there’s a sudden barrage in his right. 

“There are six of us, we heard you’re the hot breakfast place, we need a table at 11am.”

“Wait,” says the cook. “Not my department.” 

He runs to get Jo Oliver, the morning’s senior waiter, who reluctantly takes the call.

“Marios is frantic at the time, people waiting for tables,” she says. “To remove myself from the floor is difficult.” When the caller repeats their request, the answer is simple. “I’m sorry, we don’t take bookings. They tell me they are bringing a very special guest. I say, I appreciate that, but we don’t take bookings.” 

After some conversation in the background, the caller returns to say, we’re actually bringing Seinfeld in. He loves breakfast. He’s a breakfast nut. Is there anything you can do to help us? “I’d just come back from living in India for five years,” says Jo. “I don’t really know who Seinfeld is. I certainly don’t know how big he is and I don’t really care. It’s straightforward to me. We don’t take bookings.”

She tells the caller they could send someone 20 minutes before the group to line up, and they hold a hand over the handset to discuss. Jo is antsy. The coffee machine is hissing. Knives and forks are clinked together on empty yolk-smeared plates. 

“By now, it’s been five minutes, the restaurant is in chaos.” 

The caller returns to the line with another request. Seinfeld’s back needs to be towards the wall so he can see everything. Through the kitchen doorway, Jo sees a regular take the final sip of her long black. It’s the last straw. “I tell them I’m really sorry but that’s too hard for us. They are driving me a bit crazy. I say I need to go and hang up.” That was it. They never arrive. End of story. Or was it? The following Monday morning at 9.01am, Mario Maccarone happens to be standing in the kitchen when the phone rings. It’s the concierge from Seinfeld’s hotel. “He says, ‘I recommended you, and I’m never going to recommend you ever again.’ He goes into a rant. I tell him, ‘We don’t take bookings, we have never taken bookings, we would have loved Jerry to come, but we don’t take bookings.’ The guy had never been here. He didn’t get it. He was relentless. In the end, I hung up on him.” 

That was it. End of story. Or was it? Mario walks 10 paces into the dining room, somewhat infuriated. “At the first table, the big round one on the top of the step, is a woman called Palz Vaughan, arts editor and social commentator. I tell her the tale. She writes it up for the Melbourne Times.” And then? End of story? “It explodes. The Age is onto it. The Herald-Sun gets onto it. Radio stations call, the BBC, the New York Times. A story about nothing happening is picked up around the world.”

Two things change at Marios. “We don’t have a phone in the kitchen anymore,” says Mario. “And if you call the office phone, there’s a message explaining how we work.” One thing doesn’t change: Marios still doesn’t take bookings. In this case, it’s the tale of the concierge, a man we will call HM, who only becomes aware of the media firestorm at a dinner party in 2015. “My partner’s brother is a regular at Marios,” says HM. “He starts telling a story about some hotel tosser who tried to wrangle a booking for Seinfeld. Sheepishly, I say, ‘Oh, I think that tosser is me.’” 

He recalls the 1998 incident thus. 

“I’m asked to recommend a spot for brunch and I recommend Marios without hesitation. It’s the hottest spot. They do the best chicken livers. I ring to make a booking. The gentleman informs me they don’t take reservations. I call a second time, with permission to use the name of the VIP, but it makes no difference. Things may become a little heated. In the hotel game, you have to be discreet and diplomatic, sometimes insistent. The VIP is none the wiser about the conversation I have and they go to Marios without a booking.” 

Maybe the comedian sits with his back to the wall. Probably, he has the chicken livers.

This is an edited extract from Marios 40th Anniversary, a book of interviews, stories and photography to commemorate four decades of the Fitzroy institution. It’s free for all diners at Marios until stocks last. The cafe will officially celebrate from 8am to 10pm on April 28, with complimentary prosecco and cake (the famous chocolate, date and almond torte) on arrival.