Grants help spice up nooks and crannies

The City of Sydney Council is handing out 20,000 grants ti CBD businesses to enliven the city’s empty nooks and crannies.

Yu Sasaki is one of the successful applicants, having recently received a grant of $20, 000 to help establish his café Cre Asion.

The location is Alberta Lane near Liverpool Street, one cranny that hasn’t seen much action in a while.

The space housing the new café has been vacant for almost three years, and until recently, pedestrian traffic in the lane has been scarce.

This changed when the successful Berta Restaurant and Bar opened on the street, and Cre Asion’s arrival will only add to the momentum.

Since 2008 the grant program, titled Finegrain Business Development Matching Grant Program, has dished out over $210, 000 to small scale start-ups.

To be successful, businesses must be unique, small, and situated in a position that will “activate” an underused inner-city location.

Sasaki’s Cre Asion ticks all these boxes.  With only two employees (himself included), Japanese born Sasaki runs the café, specialising in hand made macaroons and Japanese tea brewed the traditional way.

The butter is made onsite daily, as is the bread.

Sasaki’s concept matches the Council’s vision perfectly – locally made, unique, specialist goods – consumed in an abandoned alleyway.

Sasaki considers his concealed location beneficial, attributing the café’s quiet, minimalist character to lack of traffic noise.

“This is uncommon when in the middle of the city,” he says.

Grants were also approved for a small bar development in Reiby Place, Circular Quay, and for a Café’s alfresco development in Market Row.

The grants come at the same time as the council has decided to extend its Liquor Freeze for trouble spots in the city for another year.

The Bonafides Café on Market Row received a grant of over $15, 000 from the Council.

The café is licensed and will serve dinner alfresco until nine at night.

The café is a stone’s throw away from the City South Liquor License Freeze zone, where similar developments have been frozen for over two years.

Applications for the next round of FineGrain Business Development grants are already open.

“We have allocated up to $120, 000 in new funding this financial year,” a city spokesperson said.

By Nick Jones