Little café.
Big heart!

Moon Rabbit is a sustainable social enterprise café from community organisation the Bridge.

Why we started it

It’s an opportunity to create practical training opportunities for learners with additional needs, to complement our vocational training. We also wanted to create an income stream to support our community programs that are currently underfunded, such as Laneway Lunch, which feeds 40-60 people each Friday. This year we’ve launched a pilot program called TTT – Tiered Training & Transition. TTT provides young adults with a tailored work-readiness program, four days a week for 26 weeks, with classroom-based training, ongoing support and practical placement at Moon Rabbit and other Darebin workplaces.

Sustainability at the forefront

These are some of the measures we’ve taken at Moon Rabbit to help the environment:

We don’t have disposable takeaway cups. BYO mug, borrow a pre-loved mug from our collection or purchase a Moon Rabbit reusable cup.
We don’t offer plastic takeaway containers. All takeaway food is served in paper bags, cardboard boxes and glass jars, and we serve food and drinks in ceramic plates and cups with proper cutlery to customers who dine in at the café. Local residents and workers can take their food on a plate and return it later.
We don’t sell drinks in plastic bottles. All of our cold drinks come in glass bottles, and customers can refill their own water bottles at Moon Rabbit for free.
We don’t have disposable carry trays. Cloth carry bags are available for purchase if you need to carry more than one coffee.
We don’t have plastic drinking straws. Paper straws are available on request.
We reuse leftover drinking water to water our plants.
We use bokashi bins for all of our organic waste; compost juices are added to our herb gardens. We’re in the process of setting up worm farms; in the meantime, our fermented food scraps are taken to Northcote Bakeshop and added to their compost.
Our coffee is delivered in large, refillable tins by Padre Coffee, which we return for refilling.
Our coffee grounds are reused by Croxton School in its community garden.
Our bread is delivered in reusable fabric bread bags by Northcote Bakeshop.
We take reusable containers to Preston Market to purchase all of our cheese and meat.
Our fruit and vegetables are delivered in cardboard boxes, which we return to our supplier, and we’ve worked with them to eliminate any produce arriving in plastic packaging.
We hand-stamp our loyalty cards and business cards on reused cardboard.
Our new kitchen gloves are compostable and made from recycled materials.

NEXT STEPS: we’re switching to biodegradable bandages for hospitality mishaps.

What’s a moon rabbit?

The moon rabbit is a popular character in Asian folklore, known for its kindness and generosity of spirit, that watches over us from the moon. If you look closely, you can see the image of a rabbit pounding a mortar and pestle in the moon at night.