Victoria University Professor Maureen Ryan and director of The Granary Café in Sunshine, Tom Nielson. 73173 Picture: JOE MASTROIANNI
A SUNSHINE café, which is committed to showcasing work by students and artists across the West, has been featured in a YouTube video about discovering Brimbank’s hidden gems.
The Granary Café was among the attractions included in the ‘Your Own Backyard, Brimbank’, featured, and was produced by Wine.Food.Hotel in collaboration with Destination Melbourne and the Brimbank City Council.
The Sunshine Golf Club, Alfrieda St and Organ Pipes National Park were also featured in the clip.
The Granary director Tom Nielson said he has been at the café for three years.
“I guess from my point of view, I started a café in Brimbank, particularly in Sunshine, because there’s a lack of café culture here,” he said.
“The community can come out and call it a second home, that’s what I’m trying to create.
“I love it here in the morning because the local people come in and they know everyone and mingle.”
The café is located in the Sunshine Harvester Centre, in the building which was once the headquarters of the Sunshine Harvester Works, established by HV McKay in 1906.
“People come here and say, ‘My grandmother used to work there’,” Mr Nielson said.
He has used the building’s old tin roof to construct the café’s counter and said it was important to decorate the business, in the historical theme.
For the past four years, director of Gallery Sunshine Everywhere and Victoria University Professor Maureen Ryan, has been working with the café to showcase the work of artists and school pupils, many from the West.
The café changes its artworks every few weeks and has opening nights for the community to attend.
Ms Ryan said as a professor in the School of Education at the university’s Footscray Park campus, she kept in contact with schools across the West and invited them to display artwork at the café.
Ms Ryan said she was thrilled when café patrons asked to purchase student’s artworks.
See www.thegranary.com.au for more information.
