There are only three cafes I know of in Bali that do such a roaring trade you need to reserve a table for breakfast or brunch.
Two of them are ultra-modern and verge on fine dining. They’re owned by celebrity chefs who work intensely with influencers and cater primarily to Indonesian tourists, and their obsession with Instagram. The third, Openhouse Cafe, is different. It is set in a Joglo, a traditional Javanese vernacular house made of teak with an open-wall, high-ceiling design. It serves standard cafe fare, not dishes made for pictures — things like smashed avocado on toast, tropical fruit juices, banana bread, burrito bowls, cheeseburgers and chicken Caesar wraps. And it refuses to collaborate with, or give freebies to, the countless influencers who contact them seeking free grub in exchange for positive reviews. In fact, Openhouse Cafe doesn’t do any advertising at all, relying entirely on word-of-mouth and unpaid reviews like this one. And, even more peculiarly, it’s owned by a 36-year-old from Perth who never worked a day in his life in a cafe before he opened this one. Yet when I visited on a recent Tuesday in May, well outside of the high season for tourists, every table in the 120-seat venue was occupied and there was a queue for walk-in customers at the door. Openhouse Cafe is in Seseh, an emerging neighbourhood on the outskirts of Bali’s tourism mecca of Canggu. It caters almost entirely to foreign tourists and expats, with indoor and alfresco dining plus a poolside area and deck overlooking rice fields where customers can spend all day chilling poolside for a measly $4.
After lunch, I caught up with the owner. His name is Ben, and he comes from Perth. He asked that his surname be withheld.
“When I first arrived in Bali two years ago, I was travelling and working online but couldn’t find a decent restaurant or co-working space where I could get into the flow and eat the foods that I like,” he said.
“So instead of trying out more and more places, I invested my savings and opened my own spot down the road in Pererenan. I called it Openhouse because of what I used to do on weekends in Perth. I’d invite all my mates over, we’d cook together, have a few drinks and play music. Openhouse Cafe is a public version of that. This is our second venue, which we opened in December. In August, we’re opening a third.” So how did Ben pull it off, without an iota of experience? What’s the secret to his success?
“To be honest, I don’t know,” he says.
“I’d need to study my own business to see why it works so well while so many other restaurants in Bali fail.
“The one thing I do know is that there’s no way a person like me could pull this off in Australia because of the massive expense of council regulations, jumping through hoops and taxes. But in Bali, the only thing holding you back is your creativity.”
Fact file: Openhouse Cafe is on Jalan Pantai Munggu, Seseh. Open 6am-10pm. Bookings essential. openhousecafebali.com
