Brewmance is located at 56 Willoughby Rd, Crows Nest NSW 2065 and their NEW location at Shop 3/45 Burns Bay Rd, Lane Cove NSW 2066. Open weekdays, 6:30-3:00, and weekends 7:30-3:00. Follow them on Instagram for a good laugh and to become an honourary member of the Brew Crew.
“Cool place and cool coffee.” That’s how co-owner Davide Crespi sums up his Lower North Shore cafe. Walking into the relaxed spot with its hand-painted murals, great music and always bubbly staff, it’ll take you two seconds to realise he’s spot on. But the soul of Brewmance goes way beyond “cool”. This cafe is all about family, in both the literal and figurative sense.
After 10+ years working together at cafes across Sydney, Italian-born Davide and his best mate Hoky Michael, who hails from Indonesia, set out to start their own thing. They built their business from the ground up, after finding the perfect spot in Crows Nest – a space many told them was bound to fail, especially in the midst of the pandemic. In a matter of months, they transformed an outdated shop into a coffee haven, doing most of the work themselves. Armed with a strong business plan (“and a plan if the business failed,” says Hoky), Davide and Hoky stuck to their gut and opened Brewmance in 2022, which quickly became a cracking success and local favourite.
“At the end of the day, we don’t really listen to other people,” says Hoky. “If we did, Brewmance would never have happened. As business owners, compared to workers, our risk tolerance is higher. We were ready for everything, and we knew we could make it work.”
The name Brewmance, which the boys have Davide’s wife, Rebecca, to thank for, isn’t just about the unbreakable bromance between Hoky and Davide. It also reflects the special connection the gents share with their customers and staff – aka their “family”.
As immigrants to Australia – an experience that often comes with many positives but also worries of the unknown and the challenge of settling into a new environment - family is something that the co-owners place huge emphasis on within their business.
Hoky’s brother, Ping, is head barista, and Ping’s wife, Vica, is also part of the team. “People say don’t do business with family, but we have a different mindset,” says Hoky. “If you can’t trust your family, who can you trust?” But it’s not just those related by blood or marriage that Davide and Hoky consider family: “All of the team is family,” says Davide. “The two of us cannot do what we do without them.”
With this in mind, it’s understandable the boys take careful consideration when hiring new team members. “We don’t care where you’re from, as long as you’re hungry for a career and a life in Australia,” says Hoky. “We are hungry, we want to expand the business, and we want to do it in the right way. We can’t do that if we don’t find the right people.”
This focus on relationships extends to their customer base. No matter how busy they are, the Brewmance crew will take time to make customers feel welcome, starting with a personalised coffee – not to mention half-price everything for firefighters, police force members and first responders. “It might sound cliche, but the most rewarding thing about working in hospitality is connecting with people; we have the pleasure of meeting lots of interesting people from lots of different backgrounds, which we really enjoy,” says Davide.
The same goes for suppliers. Given the shared values, partnering with Will & Co was an easy choice, the boys say: “When we met Josh and Anthony we had an amazing feeling, we started this strong relationship, then once we tried their coffee we were like ‘this is elite’. It’s a very natural partnership and we can’t imagine it any different.”
Plus, our ‘Brewmance’ goes way beyond the beans – we’ve had heaps of fun working together on bespoke activations, marketing, barista training and more.
While Hoky and Davide’s decade-long dream has come true (in fact, it’s turned out better than the dream, says Hoky), the pair have big plans for the future. As we speak, they’ve just opened to doors to their second cafe in Lane Cove – which will also have “good vibes, amazing coffee and soul food for your belly,” says Davide – and have plans to grow beyond that down the track. We may not have all the details yet, but one thing’s for sure: as the Brewmance family grows, the Lower North Shore community gets luckier and luckier.
