Little café.
Big heart!

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

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US:
Saturday trading + jaffle competition

It’s been one year since we launched. In that time we’ve trained 26 students through our TTT program and prevented more than 10,000 disposable coffee cups from ending up in landfill. We think that deserves a celebration!

We’ve heard your requests for Saturday trading and we’ve listened. We’re launching Moon Rabbit Saturdays on our birthday, 16 March, with music, party food and a jaffle competition.

Got an idea for a delicious jaffle filling? We want to know about it! To enter, sign up for our newsletter and fill out the jaffle-suggestion box in the signup form. Entries will be accepted until 4pm on Saturday 16 March. The winning jaffle will be chosen on Monday 18 March, added to the Moon Rabbit specials menu later that month, and its creator will receive a $50 Moon Rabbit voucher and a shout-out in our newsletter and on Instagram.

On the birthday-party menu:

A special-edition fairy-bread jaffle (our taste testers have not stopped talking about it)
A special-edition smoothie with vegan-meringue bunny ears
Plus everything on our new 2019 menu

See you on the 16th!

Why we started Moon Rabbit

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. Last year we launched TTT – Tiered Training & Transition, a tailored work-readiness program, with classroom-based training, ongoing support and practical placement at Moon Rabbit.

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 or glass jar 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 and glass jars (or BYO container), and we serve food and drinks in ceramic plates and cups with proper cutlery to customers who dine in at the café.
We don’t sell drinks in plastic bottles. All of our cold drinks come in glass bottles and aluminium cans, 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 worm farms for most of our organic waste; compost juices are added to our herb gardens. Remaining food scraps are composted by members of our community. (Get in touch if you’d like to take some, or visit Sharewaste to register your compost as a community collection site.)
Our coffee is delivered in large, refillable tins by Padre Coffee, which we return for reuse.
Our coffee grounds are reused by Croxton School and DIVRS in their community gardens.
Our bread is delivered in reusable fabric bread bags by Northcote Bakeshop. We use the loaf ends for making staff meals and breadcrumbs, which are available for sale.
We take reusable containers to Preston Market to purchase our cheese and meat.
Our fruit and vegetables are delivered in cardboard boxes, which we return to our supplier, and we’re working with them to eliminate any produce arriving in plastic packaging.
We hand-stamp our loyalty cards and business cards on reused cardboard.
We wash and air-dry our laundry – tea towels, cleaning cloths and bread bags – on site to conserve energy.

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.