Summary: Who: Sal Malatesta from St. Ali Coffee When: 7pm, October 14th 2009 Where: The Order of Melbourne, 401 Swanston St, Melbourne. RSVP: melbourne@thehive.org.au or RSVP through the Facebook Event. Sal Malatesta opened his first cafe as a law student and at the age of 36, Salvatore has bought and sold over 65 cafes, his most recent new venture being the soon to be opened, Outpost in Yarra Lane, South Yarra. A specialist retail cafe powered by St Ali, Outpost is where customers can select their coffee profile of choice – Outpost will be a distillation of the ‘third wave’ concept, but located in the heart of South Yarra. Interior designers, Hecker Phelan & Guthrie (HP&G) collaboratively worked with Salvatore to capture the essence of St Ali’s reclaimed “Brooklyn dumpster chic theme” and translate it into a retail bean store with a South Yarra context. Outpost is scheduled to open mid September 2009. Internationally, the St Ali concept of coffee labs and fresh single estate coffee roasting outlets will launch in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore through an alliance with much loved Australian gourmet food brand, ‘Jones the Grocer’. A self described ‘third wave’ coffee guy, Salvatore believes: “Coffee should not be viewed as a commodity susceptible to the forces of the market but as an artisan high end product. Instead of buying low and selling high, we must buy higher and sell higher. We must also from start to finish, care from growers to cup which means building direct trade relationships with growers, hosting growers in Australia so that they can meet their end users, seasonality of crop, storage techniques, transport and so on. The list is endless.”
