SATURDAY BREAKFAST #2: GRANARY LANE, MENTONE

Visited 16 September, 2006

Mentone Station is right on Balcombe Road, and the railway line crosses the Road at an angle that is not right – it’s acute or obtuse, depending which way you look.  The streets near the Station are cock-eyed as a result.  Quite a tangle on the western side, but beyond the smaller shops room has been made for both Coles and Safeway and their attendant lots for cars and trolleys.  There are several streets of shops; and all – excuse the pun – towered over by the tower of Kilbreda College, smack in the heart of the shopping precinct.

Kilbreda College was founded by the Brigidene Sisters in 1904, and in establishing their Melbourne community they had the foresight (and the good fortune and the funds) to acquire an already-established premises.  The building had been The Mentone Coffee Palace, built in 1887 when Melbourne was becoming home to a number of similar temperance hotels where “no wine, ale or spirituous or intoxicating liquors” was sold. 

The suburban rail network had reached "Mentone by the sea" in 1881 (the station was originally named Balcombe), where the pretension of the times had already named Venice Street, Como Parade, Florence Street and Naples Road.  The shareholders of the Coffee Palace Company expected great things, but the bust that followed the land boom thought otherwise.  And they hadn’t expected that a big hotel – one that did purvey spirituous liquors etc. – would be built on the Mentone beachfront, and would take their custom.  So the Coffee Palace closed, the Company was liquidated in 1895, and the building had a number of owners and uses until rescued from dereliction by the nuns nine years later.

The hundred years-plus of change overseen by the Kilbreda College tower has included the disappearance of many types of business and trade.  Lingering mementos remain in the names Old Bakery Lane and Granary Lane; and it was in the latter, running off Balcombe Road, that we found our breakfast spot. 

Truly Scrumptious is an immodest name, providing a daily challenge to the proprietors; and from our viewpoint the challenge was met.  Each bowl of toasted muesli and soft fruits was served on a platter accompanied with a jug of milk and a dish of delicious vanilla yoghurt with syrup.  At the next table six elderly locals, obviously regulars, were having their usual – one couple into the big cooked breakfast, with the others ostensibly content with their coffee and muffins but giving envious glances. 

The Truly Scrumptious people were most pleasant and efficient.  The business has been there since 1990, so has already existed longer than The Mentone Coffee Palace.  I fancy that, by some sort of osmosis, Truly Scrumptious has taken on the Kilbreda motto “Strength and Kindliness”.

Gary Andrews