Food

A Larry David Cafe Is Opening Up; Propelling Melbourne Into A Critical State Of Self-Parody

This fucking city.

by Meg Watson  20 January 2016

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First thing’s first: there’s nothing wrong with having a concept behind your bar or restaurant. This — just behind ‘don’t poison people’ and ‘never let Gordon Ramsay in your freezer’ — is one of the main things I learned from my seven years of experience binge-watching Kitchen Nightmares, and it rarely seems to steer anyone wrong.

“A taste of old world Italy” is a tidy catch-all for explaining why you ran out of money and allowed one side of your restaurant to be literal rocks. If you call yourself a Hollywood diner and dress a few staff up as Marilyn Monroe, people will readily accept the fact they’re sitting on metal bus benches and paying $22 for a suspiciously chewy burger and oily fries. It’s all part of the experience — and this can be great! So much of the act of dining is about enjoyment and connection, and if people can get that from a shared love of a place, element of pop culture, or sad uni student earning their rent money on roller skates, more power to ’em.

But recently, Melbourne has taken this to extreme.

In addition to our Biggie Smalls kebab shop, posh Patrick Bateman-themed bars (which hey, kinda miss the point of Bret Easton Ellis’ actual books), and beloved burger joint unfortunately themed around the work of Bill Cosby, we recently acquired a bar entirely devoted to George Costanza. Complete with a mural of the Seinfeld character and both a cocktail and jaffles menu themed to his tastes, Fitzroy’s George’s Bar has made envy-inducing headlines around the world and flooded Instagram with pictures of lovable dorks stuffing their face full of fried cheese and drunkenly losing their minds next to old quotes on subway tiles.

But the reaction hasn’t all been positive. Frustrated by the increasing novelty and painful hipness of every new bar and restaurant opening in the city, some locals have rolled their eyes at the whole thing. In his (non-)review of the bar, ThreeThousand editor Sam West said he refused to visit it. “I wish them the best of luck. And I get it. I really do,” he wrote. “Quoting sitcoms is that crutch we use to prop up our sense of humour when we can’t think of anything original to say. We all do it. It feels good … But you know that wide-eyed goof of a pal you have who leans on the sitcom crutch just a little too hard? To me, George’s Bar is that friend. And I don’t want to have a beer with him.”

He hasn’t been alone in this opinion.

Today, it’s amid all this — both the unstoppable hype and inevitable backlash — that we now have Larry David’s.

“Oh no no no no no…”

As Beat first reported earlier this afternoon, Thornbury, an inner-suburb in Melbourne’s north will be getting a cafe inspired by the Seinfeld creator and Curb Your Enthusiasm star in just a couple of weeks. According to its recently-created Facebook page, Larry David’s will be a “New York-inspired bagelry with a focus on good coffee, juices and delicious takeaway bagels. With homage to the great man himself.”

A local’s post on the page shows that branding has just gone up in the window seemingly confirming that this is happening whether you like it or not:

Today is either a very good or extremely bad day to be a Melburnian. I just… I just don’t even know anymore.

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