Ceres

Oh, you’ve never heard of Ceres? That’s okay — neither have the Google Maps routing algorithms. We’re the 4.5-hectare landfill-turned-urban farm in Brunswick East that somehow became a whole state of mind.

It’s Saturday, 8am. You’re at the CERES cafe with a filter coffee and a snake plant you didn’t need but bought because it made you feel like an adult. The 200 chickens are clucking like they own the place (they do). Kids are running wild. Someone’s doing a workshop on home fermentation. The Merri Creek Trail is right there, teeming with e-bikes looking for photo ops. Welcome to our suburban ecosystem: dirt, compost, and righteous smugness.

Yes, we were a literal rubbish dump until 1982. Now we cost $2.5 million a year to keep open for free — and we’re currently begging for $150,000 just to stay alive. As Broadsheet reported, CEO Cinnamon Evans is all: “Come enjoy a coffee, buy a plant, visit Joe’s, be part of it.” And we do. We crowd-fund ourselves into existence every few years. The fundraiser hit $125k in 18 days, because god forbid anyone in the inner north loses their weekly organic food box fix.

But here’s the thing: we’re not a suburb, we’re a movement. You want petty drama? Try queuing for a stall at the Makers And Flea Market while some guy explains his ethically foraged clay earrings. Try ordering a Fair Food box through a “food host” pick-up zone. Try living in the postcode where a $10 juice is considered therapy.

Who would hate it here? Anyone who thinks chickens belong on a farm, not in a cafe’s sightline. People who don’t want to accidentally compost their mail. And definitely the e-bike guy from the Broadsheet guide who wrote “Instant cool points” about us. We see you.

Who would love it? Anyone who’s ever bought a sad little snake plant and kept it barely alive. The 500,000 annual visitors who come for the free entry and stay for the existential dread of not doing enough for the planet. We’re a landfill with a better PR team. Come be part of it.