The Red Herring kaput

As both a uni student and an GLBTQ one at that, I could never get the nerve to go in here. Too cool for its own good…and it did seem like a mess.

I went there a couple of times, the tea was nice and the atmosphere more relaxed and with more to look at on the walls than the places I usually go to in Civic.

Can’t help but wonder how many prejudicial realities one typically encounters over a cappuccino or a big breakfast.

Just because something is different doesn’t mean it has soul.

Mr_Shab said :

A little more of the soul of the city is sucked out and made bland.

Honestly, if ‘soul’ is having a cafe which resembles a rat infested flea hole, then the other cities can keep it! I’ve never seen a cafe which looked like such a dive in Melbourne.

Free market capitalism meets enthusiastic idealism, expected to go three rounds ends in tko in the first. claims of doping to be investigated. thank god for the facebook fotos

That’s a bummer. It was good to see someone having a crack at something a bit different, but it was doomed from the start. Rents are so damned high in Civic that you need to sell a LOT of coffee to make a go of it. That rather precludes relaxed-pace, homely places like the Red Herring.

I don’t think you can crow-bar a Melbourne-style cafe culture into Canberra (much as we’d like one) with the savagely high fixed costs that businesses in Civic are subject to.

That said, Melbourne-style cafe culture isn’t in Melbourne CBD, it’s in the ‘burbs.

No estate agent is interested in the sustainability of the businesses they put into commercial spaces – there’s always more grist for the mill. The only businesses that seem to thrive in Civic are high-visibility, high-turnover places; which tend to be very lowest-common-denominator.

A little more of the soul of the city is sucked out and made bland.

You said :

The Red Herring was great. Sad to see it go.

The responses on here really aren’t that surprising considering the boring, unenthusiastic nature of Canberran’s. Really, this city has zero culture and practically no enthusiasm for anything that might just be a little bit out of the ordinary. Such is the way of rich public servants.

Hell, even getting uni students to a gig at their own bar is like trying to pull teeth. Maybe this city is just poison.

I’ve never been to the place in question, but as someone who was born in Canberra and spent a few decades there and moved on I have to agree with these sentiments.

Unfortunately the town I once loved has sunken into a cesspool of off white modern establishments lacking any character.

And as for the cynical response to the idea of a place in Canberra acting as a refuge against prejudice etc. Despite Canberra’s left-leaning political ideas it often shames itself in being more judgmental towards those that are different. There are many small towns that are more accepting.

I don’t think I could stand returning to Canberra and being in the ‘CBD’ on a Friday or Saturday night and being subjected to the typical aggressive jock attitude that plagues the town.

ThatUniStudent said :

The red Herring was marketed almost exclusively to uni students, gay, lesbian, bi and queer uni students. Now I love diversity,more than most people. But I’ve also studied marketing. Yes, people want a “space” of their own. But think it through a minute. Your market is uni students, who are renown for being what in terms of money? Broke, yep, poor. Then the market is limited even more by marketing almost exclusively to a sub set of those students. Who are renowned for being what in terms of money? Even poorer.

Why are GLB uni students poorer than heterosexual uni students?

You said :

The Red Herring was great. Sad to see it go.

The responses on here really aren’t that surprising considering the boring, unenthusiastic nature of Canberran’s. Really, this city has zero culture and practically no enthusiasm for anything that might just be a little bit out of the ordinary. Such is the way of rich public servants.

Hell, even getting uni students to a gig at their own bar is like trying to pull teeth. Maybe this city is just poison.

Bitter – just like the coffee they served….

Sadly, I never knew that this place even existed. It seems like the type of place that I would have liked.

But, as ThatUniStudent has pointed out, they didn’t really market to a very large group of people. There are probably a lot of people, like me, who don’t work in civic or hang around that area very often, and didn’t even know it existed. It’s not really fair to blame the people of Canberra for being “boring”, when really what was needed was a better marketing strategy.

Interesting comments above about marketing, as I walk past there almost every workday if I have need/want to leave my building at lunch time. I did contemplate going in a couple of times.

A “Free Wifi” sign on an A4 page in the window would have got me in the door, or a “Find us on Facebook” sign so I could find out about the Free Wifi (I noticed a Facebook sign in Baileys Arcade this week).

Drinkable coffee and something to eat on a par with Dobinsons quiche or custard tart would keep me coming back.

But perhaps they were not interested in attracting 40-something mums who are looking for somewhere to have a comfy and quiet lunch break?? (when I say “quiet” I really mean in comparison to a family home outside school hours)

The red Herring was marketed almost exclusively to uni students, gay, lesbian, bi and queer uni students. Now I love diversity,more than most people. But I’ve also studied marketing. Yes, people want a “space” of their own. But think it through a minute. Your market is uni students, who are renown for being what in terms of money? Broke, yep, poor. Then the market is limited even more by marketing almost exclusively to a sub set of those students. Who are renowned for being what in terms of money? Even poorer.

So yes, your cafe gets lots of uni students in it, drinking coffee, the same cup, over a space of 2-4 hours. You can’t make a profit selling a single cup of coffee per customer in 2 hours!

It was like that clothing shop that set up in Queanbeyan that only sold clothing for big people. They didn’t bother researching the market enough. Yes, there is a need for oversized clothing, and yes Queanbeyan like all places has a few big people, but not enough to sustain a market.

For crying out loud people, do your research first. Is there the market in place to sustain your business? If not, expand your market. There are PLENTY of cafes in civic that are doing okay. Why? Because they didn’t deliberately limit their market. They’ll sell coffee to anyone who happens to wander by. You want a cheap coffee, go to Makkas. You want a more expensive one and a bite to eat, go to a cafe. You want a meal and coffee, there’ll be some one to cater for that too. They don’t care who you’re having sex with, just that you can pay and don’t mess up their store.

If I were the manager of this store and I saw that I wasn’t getting in the income I needed after the first month I would have change my business plan, marketed to a wider audience and gone more mainstream. Yeah, mainstream sucks, but it pays the bills.

All that said, I will miss the place, especially the theme nights. 🙁
Good luck Z. 🙂

You said :

The Red Herring was great. Sad to see it go.

The responses on here really aren’t that surprising considering the boring, unenthusiastic nature of Canberran’s. Really, this city has zero culture and practically no enthusiasm for anything that might just be a little bit out of the ordinary. Such is the way of rich public servants.

Hell, even getting uni students to a gig at their own bar is like trying to pull teeth. Maybe this city is just poison.

What a load of crap – sounds like those whingeing artists, who insist that they are geniuses (genii?) but that the public is too uneducated/unsophisticated to appreciate their talent.

The law of supply and demand is a fairly simple one – if there is a demand for your product/service/venue then you will succeed. If there is no demand, then you won’t. That’s life, and it’s not the fault of us Canberrans if we chose not to subsidise the glorious pipe dream which was the Red Herring Cafe.

Skidd Marx said :

It lasted what – 2 weeks? I guess that’s why not many 19 year olds make it in the business world.

I think it had been there a couple of months at least.

The Red Herring was great. Sad to see it go.

The responses on here really aren’t that surprising considering the boring, unenthusiastic nature of Canberran’s. Really, this city has zero culture and practically no enthusiasm for anything that might just be a little bit out of the ordinary. Such is the way of rich public servants.

Hell, even getting uni students to a gig at their own bar is like trying to pull teeth. Maybe this city is just poison.

^^ The first riotact mention was 16th Feb, so for us I guess it lasted four-ish months. Not two weeks, but still a pretty s***** run.

Dante said :

People will still be talking about Toast, as they are still today.

Why are people talking about toast today? Did someone burn it and set of the fire alarm again?

It lasted what – 2 weeks? I guess that’s why not many 19 year olds make it in the business world.

The coffee was ok, the food was terrible.
Interesting idea for a cafe tho’. Hopefully the owner(s) can learn from this and have better luck the second time around?

I guess all the chalk they used to graffitti City Walk wasn’t cheap.

‘A truly safe space where people could be themselves, safe from the prejudicial realities of everyday life.’ – Wow! Tickets even Nelson Mendela would be proud of! That’s right Canberra, we’re all a of xenophobes, homophobes, misogynists and an array of other -phobes … you have been warned.

This is why Canberra can’t have nice things.

Live by Facebook, die by Facebook.

So, was the coffee any good?

I blame the bow-tied lesbians.

I visited the Red Herring once. I had a near uncontrollable urge to tidy the place up. Needless to say, it was hardly relaxing

Never heard of it….

How long has this place been around? Makes it sound like 20 years or more.

Good on them for trying something new, I guess. But maybe there’s just not enough smiling lesbians around to serve people their coffee. Or bow ties.

So… love free love can’t pay the rent, hey? Who would have thought…

It’s that type of self-important wankery that made me stay away from the place.

And I’m sorry, but people won’t be talking about the Red Herring for years to come. People will still be talking about Toast, as they are still today.

“On Friday they shut of the power and it all comes to an end.” == We can’t afford to pay our bills?