GEORGE TOWN, Oct 5 – Pieces of wood rescued from the beach. Unwanted rickety old furniture left by the roadside. Worn-out bits and pieces from friends, neighbours and relatives. Discarded wooden pallets and crates.

All these, when fixed and given a new coat of paint or varnish, make for some unique décor for ideas in small little cafés owned by people with hardly any money to spend on interiors.

Think of it as interior design long on creativity and short on budgets.

The growing popularity of George Town as a heritage tourism site has given birth to a café culture where locals and tourists while away the afternoon with some coffee, desserts or snacks. Some of these cafés even offer up a satisfying homecooked meal.

Yes, cafés are popping up on every street corner and even in the most obscure of streets; some are obviously part of huge chains or franchises while many are smaller establishments set up by local entrepreneurs trying to cash in on the thriving tourism industry.

We took a short walk around the inner city of George Town and found five of these smaller establishments that stood out from the rest for their ingenuity in making the most of their limited budget; creativity and plenty of elbow grease can take one quite far.

The first is a café adjoining the Rainforest Bakery, The Mugshot Café, along Chulia Street.

Though it only opened this year, it is getting more popular by the minute. The café is run by Jesse Tan and N.Tristan and is kind of an off-shoot of the bakery that has been around for more than a decade.

Many of the furniture in Mugshot are either salvaged from other places or made from wooden pallets and crates

Jesse who runs the bakery with his twin brother, Jerry, decided to turn the vacant lot next to the bakery into a café after customers asked him whether they sell sandwiches at the bakery one too many time.

However, Mugshot is not your regular sandwiches and coffee joint as Jesse wanted to make a point that bagels are just as good as any other type of bread.

“Our bagels were the worst-selling product for so many years as compared to our other bread so I decided to offer bagel sandwiches in Mugshot,” he shared.

Unsurprisingly, his customers loved it and he is now in the midst of setting up a proper “yoghurt factory” as the café also offers fresh-made yoghurt by the pots and topped with fruits, honey or nuts.

And that is all the café offers; bagels, yoghurt and coffee. All served to customers seated on furniture pieces reminiscence of school as he had salvaged many of the wooden chairs from schools!

“All these good chairs are going to waste so we saved them, repaired them and they are good to use,” he said.

The café also sports other furnishings made from wooden pallets and crates. The interior décor is all the hard work of Jesse, Tristan and their artistic friends who had pitched in to help.

Talking about elbow grease, Rudy Chong and Amelleia Leo can recount first hand the many hours of hard labour they had to put in to renovate their rented shophouse along Soo Hong Lane.

The most popular spot at The Mugshot Cafe at Chulia Street

The couple had aspirations of setting up a small motel and café but due to the shortage of funds, they decided to start with a café first called Soohongry with what little funds they had.

“We planned to start last year but the renovation took up a lot of time, we had to literally tear down ugly plywood that was nailed to the walls, take down the asbestos sheets over the ceilings, plaster the walls, paint and put this whole place into shape ourselves,” Chong said.

Only the small sitting room at the front of the shophouse is used as a café but it was furnished in such a way that it looks like a regular living room with a rattan sofa set, small cosy tables and mismatched chairs that Chong admitted they bought second hand or picked up from dump sites or roadsides.

Mugshot Cafe offers only the simplest of snacks, bagel sandwich, yoghurt and beverages (left). Pasta, muffin and a pot of tea at Soohongry (right)

Soohongry also has its own niche offerings; special tea flavours such as rose with French vanilla tea, berry sensation or mango punch.

As for food, the special of the day varies from spaghetti to pork chops and for snacks, it is either lemon poppy seed or chocolate chip muffins and since it is a pet-friendly establishment, they even have homemade baked dog biscuits.

Next up is some homecooked French cuisine and pastries at La Boheme, a café owned by a French chef, Mathieu Guegan, and his Malaysian wife, Huvi Chan.

A sitting room that is a cafe at Soohongry along Soo Hong Lane

Guegan does not believe in brand new mass-produced polished furniture either. He preferred to pick up worn-out pieces from the roadside or fashion décor items from wood pieces collected from the beach.

“People throw out perfectly good pieces of furniture that can be easily repaired and these pieces look great after I repair and paint it over,” he said as he proudly showed off mismatched pieces of chairs, cabinets, wooden doors and tables that he picked up from the roadside or bought from a second hand store.

These random pieces are artfully arranged to turn the interior of his rented shophouse along Sri Bahari Road into an artistic café with a cosy homey feel about it.

A French meal of gallete with a croissant and fruit tea at La Boheme.

La Boheme serves homemade French pastries and its specialty will have to be its galette – a thin crepe-like pancake served with a choice of different fillings from chicken to ham to mushrooms.

And if you are craving for a coffee fix or some wine, The Daily Dose, located at the other end of Carnavon Street off Chulia Street, is the place to be.

With its double shot coffee and daily specials of Mexican food, this is another café opened on a tight budget where the décor consists of art pieces by the owners’ friends or by one of the owners herself.

The Daily Dose, which is decorated by art pieces and sculptures, offers Mexican food, double shot coffee and wine

“My partner, Tanya Renee, rented the whole building and stays upstairs so we decided to use the ground floor space as a café since it was vacant anyway,” one of the owners, Justin Chua, said.

The Daily Dose offers the usual sandwiches but it stands out with its daily specials of Mexican and fusion cuisine that they change regularly.

Finally, we head on to another café that is more of a café, art gallery, a performance space and an arts and crafts shop all rolled into one – Chai Diam Mah.

Chai Diam Mah – which means sundry shop in Hokkien – is almost true to its name as half of its space in the front portion of the shophouse is a jumbled display of arts and crafts items, second hand books and paintings that are all for sale.

Chai Diam Mah, along Queen Street, is more of an art gallery, arts and crafts shop and performance space all rolled into one

Located along Queen Street and owned by Queen Lee, the little café is hardly noticeable except for the colourful abstract wall murals on its frontage. “Our focus is actually more on art and performances while the café is more of a side business,” Lee said.

The former kindergarten teacher is very passionate about the arts and tries to organise performances, talks, presentations and art exhibitions at Chai Diam Mah regularly.

Mismatched furniture at Chai Diam Mah that were either bought second-hand or unwanted pieces by other establishments

The café offers sandwiches, mini pizzas and fried rice but its niche lies in its quiet atmosphere made cosy by mismatched furniture --  yes, many of these are also salvaged from roadsides and second hand stores --  that seems to blend perfectly with the organised chaos of the art and handicraft on display.

There are many more of these small cafés coming up around George Town so take a slow stroll along the narrow streets and you may just stumble onto some charming ones where you can have a drink, some snacks or even pose for some memorable pictures!

This story was first published in Crave in the print edition of The Malay Mail on October 4, 2013.

Chai Diam Mah offers regular cafe food such as sandwiches, mini pizzas and fried rice