In 2020 Happyfield opened and Sydney got its first proper taste of pancakes. The breakfast game in the city had changed instantly.
“I grew up eating pancakes every day,” says Happyfield’s co-owner Jesse Orleans. “You couldn’t get the pancakes that I used to at home, so we were like – let’s just focus on that.”
So that’s what he and co-owner Chris Theodosi, who Orleans met while they both worked at The Grounds of Alexandria – another seminal Sydney café – decided to do. Orleans grew up in Toronto, Canada. So he knows a thing or two about pancakes – and especially their trusty sidekick: maple syrup.
When the two would talk at work about food and partnering up on something together, Orleans always brought it back to pancakes.
“Sydney [was] missing something,” Theodosi says. “Why don’t we do something about it?”
Finding a home in Haberfield
Instead of walking down the well-trodden path of smashed avocado and chilli scrambled eggs, they decided to bet big on recreating an old-school North American diner, packed with comfort food. With the concept locked and loaded, all they had to do was find the right space.
They looked at sites in the Eastern Suburbs, Newtown, Redfern – all the usual brunch spot suspects – but nothing felt right. Until they saw a large spot on a corner, in the quiet suburb of Haberfield.
“It felt like a village in a town that you stop at when you’re driving into the country,” says Theodosi. “But it’s like, 10 minutes from the city.”
It’s traditionally Italian and Mediterranean, and older families – we had a lot of warnings.”
Chris Theodosi → co-owner, Happyfield
But despite Haberfield’s sleepy character, and a demographic that shouldn’t have matched their concept, the pair saw untapped potential. They got the keys in March 2020, and we all know what happened next: Covid came along, and Sydney shut down.
“Because of Covid, we were originally going to have a designer and a builder,” says Orleans. “But once things happened and they shut the doors, we had all this time on our hands.”
“We might as well just try and do it ourselves.”
Building Happyfield by hand
For the self-funded pair, the pandemic turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It allowed them to maximise their lean budget and have complete over what they were now calling Happyfield.
No one to tell them that there was already too much yellow, so they shouldn’t paint the ceilings yellow too. No-one to tell them that they shouldn’t go overboard on branding. No-one to tell them they were about to open a maximalist café in a city that loved minimalist ones.
“We were in our little bubble – newspapers on the window – it was Covid, we were just in here chipping away” says Theodosi.
“Then a week before we opened, the newspapers came down, more and more people would be walking past and they’d be like ‘What are you opening? Hope it’s Mediterranean. Hope we have cannoli’ – and we were like ‘We’re going to be a bit different.’”
Buzzing all day
By opening day, Theodosi, Orleans and Haberfield were all wondering the same thing: will Sydney want pancakes?
“We were getting a bit nervous, then after we opened the reception we got was crazy,” Theodosi says. “And the businesses that have been here for 50 years were like they’d never seen Haberfield like that ever.”
Turns out Sydney would like pancakes. A big old stack of them. And the biggest sceptics Theodosi and Orleans converted were their own neighbours. Now, this American diner in the middle of a Mediterranean enclave is part of the fabric of the neighbourhood. And now the crowds that flock to Happyfield all day, every day, are flooding the area’s local businesses with more foot traffic than they know what to do with.
Since we’ve opened there’s probably been around 10 new businesses here. It’s just more lively, more booming – a lot of people are coming to the community, we serve about 3000 customers a week.”
Chris Theodosi → co-owner, Happyfield
Sometimes the best way to be a good neighbour is to be a successful one. And now, five years on, everyone’s happy that Happyfield’s in Haberfield.
Want to know more about how Happyfield revitalised its neighbourhood? Watch the Inner West episode of our Good Neighbours series. ->
