Marrickville institution Coffee Alchemy permanently shut the roller door on its Addison Road cafe and roastery in August.

But, it’s now taken up a bigger, light-filled industrial space on Sydenham Road, which previously housed the Voodoo Coffee Company – another roastery in the area’s milieu of coffee brands and craft breweries (Black Market Roasters just moved in around the corner).

For those wondering why Alchemy would give up its well-worn corner digs after almost 20 years, co-founder Hazel de los Reyes says it’s for reasons familiar to many Sydneysiders.

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“The property was bought out and the new landlord wanted to develop it into an apartment block. We didn’t have any say on that. And we just had to move because the whole place is going to be demolished very soon,” she tells Broadsheet.

“I remember when we first spotted the place back in 2004, Marrickville was really just a light industrial [zone]. And I looked inside and thought, this is a good place for a roastery. Back then, rent was reasonable. We’ve witnessed the gentrification of Marrickville, the real estate boom and that whole cycle. And now we’re being turfed out. It’s amazing, the evidence of social mobility in Marrickville. But we wear it.”

The original Addison Road cafe was unpretentious, with exposed brick walls and concrete floors in an old-school, red-brick industrial building. A combination of church-pew seating and perpetually half-drawn blinds – shading patrons from the harsh midmorning sun – created a moodily lit, temple-like space where devotees carried out their daily ritual over the years. The most famous of them was superstar footballer David Beckham, who famously downed three lattes in 30 minutes back in 2018. (A sign on Alchemy’s old shopfront directs passersby to let Beckham know the cafe has moved.)

While the new 440-square-metre site is a spiritual successor to the original, it doesn’t feel like a carbon copy. Soft sunlight floods the space through a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows opposite a long timber countertop. A calming teal paint job is the canvas for some familiar accoutrements: Addison Road’s white frosted pendants, circular gold mirror, Synesso coffee machine and, of course, those pews for dine-in coffees.

The two-storey building also features a large office upstairs, while out the back, three roasting machines continue to pump out Alchemy’s single-origin roasts and whimsically named blends, which still stand among Sydney’s best.

As excited as de los Reyes feels about a fresh start, it will be a while before she and co-founder Clare Lim can see the new space in person – they’ve spent the last few years in New York setting up a roastery at Industry City in South Brooklyn, and a sister cafe to Alchemy’s CBD espresso bar, Gumption, in Midtown Manhattan, not far from Times Square.

Once international travel kicks back into gear, de los Reyes says she’ll make a beeline back down under.

“I can’t wait to come back home and feel like an Australian again. Just at the airport, would you believe, you can smell the freshness of the air. I miss Sydney very, very much. But not only will I get to go back to Australia, I’m going back to appreciate a new space. So the excitement is twice.”

Coffee Alchemy
2/87 Sydenham Road, Marrickville
(02) 9516 1997

Hours:
Mon to Fri 7am–2pm
Sat 8am–3pm
Sun 9am–1pm

coffeealchemy.com.au
@coffeealchemy