KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 3 — Cafés are popping up left, right and centre in the Klang Valley -- usually in neighbourhoods or commercial areas away from shopping malls that are more restrictive about how the cafés look and feel.
Interestingly, a lot of these coffee establishments are opened by Malaysians who spent time studying Down Under. What’s surprising is that most of these café owners choose to either D-I-Y or design the interior of the place on their own instead of hiring interior designers.
We checked out Garage 51 by CoffeeSociété, started by brothers Choong Kar Wai, 26 and Choong Kar Heng, 23. In 2011, they opened their first outlet in Publika, decorating it with vintage items found in Australia. This year, they decided to do something different so they went around to look for a place. Kar Wai already knew what he had in mind.
“I was hoping to achieve the hidden garage look. The best scenario is to have no signboard because we want to be independent, for people to look for us. I started looking for the real deal in places like Shah Alam and Subang to find a garage,” said Kar Wai.
He knew he struck gold when he found a former garage near Sunway University so he bought it within 24 hours after meeting with the seller. The name is derived from the lot number 51 where the corner garage was situated. The area remains very industrial and the café is surrounded by garages.
“To create cool industrial furniture, we turned barrels into chairs and cupboards. It’s like having old things in an urban, new place,” said Kar Heng.
Most of the furniture and fittings at Garage 51 are ideas that the brothers came up with and sketched in a Moleskine notebook.
They then hired welders and carpenters to make the items according to their specifications.
One of the highlights of the space is the kitchen which was actually custom-made by a shipping container company. Originally, Kar Wai wanted to have a shipping container but the usual measurements could not fit the kitchen so he had it personalised.
“The kitchen was built onsite because we couldn’t have it made outside and then bring it in,” said Kar Wai. He said he spent a lot of money setting the kitchen up in this style.
Kar Wai admits that he likes vintage things and that he wanted the walls to look like it is 300 years old.
“I want that flavour of an old garage but it has to be clean and comfortable for our customers to enjoy,” said Kar Wai.
He said he recently read an article about how leaving home is hard. “Try leaving Melbourne! That’s even more difficult. I want to bring that same Melbourne experience back to Malaysia, the feeling and the culture,” said Kar Wai.
“When we designed this place, we didn’t want it to be too retro, not too old or not too modern but a balance of each. It’s not too industrial or professionally done. That’s the look we’re going for,” said Kar Heng.
The space is 2,000 over square feet with natural sunlight from the ceiling to floor glass walls and spacious high ceilings. They wanted to break away from the design of their first café which had a more cosy feel.
The whole place took six months to complete from the planning stage and they hired a street graffiti artist to paint the exterior of Garage 51’ it was finished within four days. The tables use reclaimed wood which is then given a treatment to look polished.
When they were in the midst of renovating the place, one of the car mechanics took notice of them and recommended that they buy a vintage car to put in the café because it fit the look.
Kar Wai then decided to get the car, had it repainted red and made it so that it can be used like a table. Initially they wanted to have it hanging from the ceiling but they abandoned the idea when they weren’t sure if it would hold up. The car ended up being part of the décor outside Garage 51.
“We’re very lucky to score the place as it is in an overlooked area. To us, it’s a secret gem. When we were setting the place up, we were in stealth mode for two months. We didn’t want our competitors to know what we were doing so we would park our cars super far,” revealed Kar Wai.
Another café owner 26-year-old Lim Yi Perng of Standing Theory probably thought the same when he opened up his coffee place in a forgotten, quieter part of SS2, a row of shoplots tucked in between rows of houses. It is the only café on the row of shoplots comprising of businesses and restaurants that have been there for years.
At a young age, Lim learned how to D-I-Y from his father who is in the metal fabrication business.
“Standing Theory’s interior design is made of bits of pieces of things I see or like. It’s a very simple design,” said the economics graduate. He too spent some time in Melbourne and was inspired by the cafés there.
“I was there around 2008/2009 which was the growth stage of the coffee culture in Melbourne. We are now going through a similar phase in Malaysia,” he said.
Most of the furnishings in Standing Theory are things that he found. For ideas, he would remember what he saw in Melbourne as well as look for design inspiration on Pinterest. Not everything in Standing Theory are “rescued” items, though. There are some chairs from IKEA, for example.
At Standing Theory, you would also find chairs with metal rods and pipes as legs.
“I was inspired by the G-clamp we used to have in school during Kemahiran Hidup (Social Sciences) class. So I did a rough sketch and gave it to my dad who is a metal fabricator. After that, we got a carpenter to put the wooden seat on top,” said Lim.
He said that some parts were coated with a metal primer and some parts were left to rust to give it an industrial look.
Noticing that the door is designed slanting to one side instead of facing forward, I asked if it was because of feng shui.
“No, not really,” laughed Lim. “When they wanted to attach the beam, the contractor pointed out that there is enough space for us to slant it one way so I decided to have it done like that. This way it forces people who come in to head towards the counter because it is pointed that way,” he explained.
Lim did a lot of D-I-Y work including the singular bulbs that dangle on top of every table with a clothing iron wire.
“We did most of the stuff ourselves so that we know what is going on with our own place. I even made that chandelier and blew a few bulbs in the process,” he said, pointing at a chandelier made of jars.
If you go to Standing Theory, you will notice an industrial-looking table in yellow. That is actually in fact a wire spool from Lim’s father’s factory. It was discarded so Lim decided to get it cut into half and washed it to be used as a table. At first it was impossible to put any cups or plates on it because the surface was “wavy” but over a few weeks, they got people to cut the pieces to make it flat.
A wooden board was fitted on top of the spool to complete the look.
Lim admits that he is not a barista but he enjoys roasting coffee beans. He’s so good in handiwork that he actually made his own roaster! But he said the roaster he designed was enough for personal consumption only and not for commercial use.
So why did he choose an industrial look for Standing Theory?
“The industrial look is more affordable and I can craft everything by myself. That way, I can spend my budget on a coffee machine and hiring a good team of baristas. I spent less than RM30 per bulb and the chandelier costs less than RM200 because I made them myself. For the blackboard menu, we only spent RM50 for the whole thing,” said Lim.
They started working on the interior from July onwards this year and Lim said they spent a lot of time in hardware shops getting supplies.
Right now his only concern is the echo caused by the glass at the entrance so he plans to fit in acoustic fibres for the walls and ceilings; that could double up as a pin board.
A potted plant is seen hanging from a macrame attachment to the ceiling. It was made by Lim’s girlfriend and he has plans to put more near the counter so that it would not look so bare.
“I decided to go with this design because I like the clean, industrial look. We open with what we need first and as we get along, we take lessons from the design and see what we need to add to make it look good and functional,” said Lim.
Garage 51 by CoffeeSociété
51, Jalan PJS 11/9, Bandar Sunway
Open Tues till Sun, 11am to 11pm
Standing Theory
26, Jalan SS2/103, Petaling Jaya
Open Tues till Sun, 11am to 11pm
This story was first published in Crave in the print edition of The Malay Mail on January 2, 2014
