Alyssa Salamon is confident she is in the right place at the right time to take the reins of the long-standing Bank Corner Espresso Bar in Newcastle West.
Salamon will take over the lease of the cafe from Friday this week.
Sadly, the cafe's long-time barista and manager Hamish Macdonald, will be leaving this week, as he is relocating to Bellingen.
"It's a massive move for me," Salamon said. "It's my first business venture of this scale."
Tony Gluck, who founded Bank Corner Espresso Bar in 2009 put the business up for sale with a separate lease in early December. He owns the Bank Corner building, and the cafe is on the same property.
"I'm not in a hurry to hand this off," Gluck said at the time. "I'm going to take my time, because it's really about finding the right person. It's not about closing a deal, and finding someone with the money. It has to go into the right hands. Somebody who understands the place. Someone with passion and imagination."
In many ways, Salamon appears to be the perfect fit.
She's worked in hospitality since she was 14 years old, employed at places such as the original Sprocket cafe in Newcastle's East End, and Fortunate Son in Hamilton.
Most recently, Salamon was working as a civil design engineer for Cessnock City Council.
In her own creative space, Salamon trades as a photographer and videographer under the name of Alpha Sierra (her initials in the phonetic alphabet) and performs as a singer and musician.
"Being part of the creative community, I'd love to be able to nurture that space a bit more," she said. "All the staff are very creatively-minded. Being able to integrate that strong community around a service-based industry is something I'm really passionate about. I see this space as having so many of those elements already there, but just having that bit of a fresh touch to keep that moving forward, to not stagnating."
Salamon will not be making any major changes, while she gets a handle on who the clientele is and what the neighbourhood vibe is.
But expect some fun, like a dog of the week (she has two dogs of her own, Frank, a beagle, and Evie, a lab cross). And some doodling pads and pens. And a few more vegan options on the menu (starting with a pumpking and fetta piadina).
And perhaps there will be a guitar or two available, in case anybody gets the urge to play while waiting for a coffee or sandwich.
There will be a few evening events soon, but Salamon doesn't expect to begin regular night-time trading for several months.
Bank Corner will be staying with its coffee roaster, the Madding Crowd, out of Sydney, and will increase add more options with beans and coffee accessories.
Salamon is keen for Bank Corner to be an inclusive community hub. She said she envisions "a little bit of community, a little bit of humanity in the space".
"I'm overjoyed that Bank Corner is going into the hands of someone who has long known and loved the cafe and understands what it takes to make it special," Gluck said.
