Slowpoke cafe (Facebook) opened earlier this week in the space formerly occupied by Pollen Industries, and has been immediately popular. Milk bar mag and Dear Melbourne have already reviewed it, and you can see more images of the interior from designer Sasufi. I thought it would be best to give them a couple of days to get settled before I visited, and did so yesterday morning.

Their long macchiato is of medium strength and without bitterness, and my smashed egg, mayo and jamon toasted Turkish bread roll with chilli jam was hot and tasty. The egg was boiled and roughly mashed like an egg salad – a nice novelty. I’m confident Slowpoke will be a success because the staff are friendly and crucially they open early in the morning to cater for the stream of pedestrian commuters heading into the city. Refusing to do this was one of Pollen’s failings.