Wicks Park Cafe - Marrickville

I have been conducting some research recently on who serves free babycinos in this caffeine obsessed city of ours and I came across an Instagram from Simon's Food Favourites of a very sweet babycino at Double Roasters Cafe in Marrickville that was absolutely free. I first heard about Double Roasters last year when I had an awesome coffee made with their beans at the home of the world's best babycino, Sorelle on Grand . It has always been at the back of my mind to visit them and when I found myself in their hood last week I stopped on by. 

Double Roasters has recently been renamed Wicks Park Cafe (it is located across the road from said park). When we arrived, we easily found a park on the street near the cafe (note this is only possible after 9am on weekdays). Approaching the cafe my hipster radar immediately prickled as there were some seriously cool dudes and dudettes wandering in and out of the cafe. Now I'm not the most hip suburban mother out there, but I did have my seriously hip, inner city Singaporean living Sista with me, so I made her walk through the door first. I don't know what I was worried about because there were people of all shapes and sizes, as well as a good number of families dining at the cafe so myself and my hips felt right at home.

We found a table amongst the families and menus were immediately brought to us - kids menus for my little dudes and adult menus for us. It was morning tea time so I didn't order anything off the kids menu for the boys except their drinks - the free babycino and a kids sized milkshake. I am pleased to report that that the usual deep fried suspects are missing from the kids menu at the Wicks Park Cafe - there isn't a nugget in sight! Instead your kidlets can dine on things such as vegemite sandwiches, ham and cheese toasties and eggs on toast - and it is all reasonably priced. For morning tea the boys had a shortbread man with sprinkles and a choc honeycomb frog.

Now on to the adult bellies - the coffee was simply outstanding - I'm thinking one of the best I've had in Sydney and I can completely understand why the cafe won 3 cups in the recent SMH good cafe awards. They serve delicious sounding food, nothing too fancy pants as the coffee is obviously the hero of this cafe. My jet lagged sista went for the bacon and egg roll which was tasty but just a tad tricky to eat as the poached eggs kept popping out of the bun each time she went to pick it up to eat it, (which was quite amusing to watch), so a knife and fork operation was required to eat it. My finger of chocolate caramel slice was the perfect accompaniment to my coffee. There all sorts of other sweet treats in the cake cabinet and I loved that their freshly baked muffins were only $3 - so cheap compared to other muffins in cafes across Sydney. If you are after a meal some items on the menu include Croque Monsieur, zucchini and ricotta fritters with house cured ocean trout, and smashed avo sprinkled with crumbled fetta, dukkah and lemon on sourdough.

There is loads of space to park you, your tribe and your pram at the Wicks Park Cafe. They have seating inside and out and the décor is what I would describe as recycled chic. A massive mural of a coffee process dominates the main wall of the cafe (you almost need a science degree to decipher it) and the coffee roaster seamlessly blends into the cafe. Fresh flowers are on every table inside and outside you will find blankets to keep you warm on chilly mornings. They also have high chairs for hip little bottoms to sit in. Another child friendly factor about the Wicks Park Cafe is that they are open from 6.00am every day, so bleary eyed parents you can rejoice that amazing caffeine is available for you so early in the morning! The service was very efficient and perhaps there was a teeny weeny bit of hipster attitude amongst the staff - oh well, the young and gorgeous these days....

At the conclusion of our morning tea I did the obligatory loo check. Wicks Park Cafe have a lovely large loo that doesn't contain a baby change table, but there is enough room to get your pram in there and all your kids at the one time if life dictates that you all need to pee at the same time. As we walked back to our table from our wee break, I noticed a small bucket of toys on a shelf just outside the bathroom. I wasn't going to let the boys inspect them as we had a playground to explore - the Wicks Park playground to be exact.

Across the busy road from the cafe you will find Wicks Park. It has loads of green space and a reasonable size playground. Unless you are a total free range parent you cannot (and should not) let your kids play at the park whilst you sit outside the cafe and enjoy your morning cup of Joe. After our morning tea we grabbed takeaways (cause that coffee was just so darn good) and took it over to the playground and the let the boys off their leashes to run wild.

I didn't expect that such a seriously cool cafe as the Wicks Park Cafe would be so child friendly, but I'm so pleased it is. So my dear parents may I suggest that next time you find yourself in the hood of Marrickville that you visit Wicks Park Cafe - don't worry if your hips are too big to be a hipster, you just need to try their coffee x

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https://www.facebook.com/wicksparkcafe
199 Victoria Rd, Marrickville NSW
02 9518 0771
Open from 6am - 3pm every day!

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