Pico – Point Lonsdale’s new community-centred cafe

Pico is Point Lonsdale’s newest café, and it is on a mission to serve quality coffee and foster quality community.

The café’s owners, Jessie and Otta Coffetti, are the previous owners of Coffetti Gelato in Barwon Heads.

The Bellarine couple opened the café just a few weeks ago after returning from their year-long trip to Italy visiting Otta’s family with their two children, Charlie, 7 and Leo, 5.

“We love people, we love serving quality coffee and creating community in a town,” Jessie said.

“Point Lonny was sort of our reprieve – on our days off we’d go over there with the Kids and we’d also always enjoyed Point Lonny so we thought we better open something up there for our next adventure.

“We sold Coffetti to one of our customers, and we’re still good friends with them. And then while we were overseas, the shop in Point Lonsdale popped up.”

The café’s layout centres on a coffee window opening onto the street with shared tables on the sidewalk, a similar layout to the couple’s previous café.

“We like to call ourselves a coffee bar,” Jessie said.

“People just stand around and go there for the chat and the social part as much as they do for the coffee, and I think that’s already taken off in Point Lonny.

“Otta’s the central point, whoever’s in the window, whoever’s making coffee, you can just have a bit of banter with the customers, and it creates that bit of community having that little circle with someone in the window and then people sitting on share tables, they all start chatting and go away laughing and that’s what we want.

“I think we really established that in Barwon Heads.”

Jessie said she and Otta particularly appreciated the community-centred culture they experienced in Italy, and both felt it was especially important for people who lived alone or were less connected into community.

“Moving from overseas, we know it’s really nice turning up to a place by yourself and know you’re going to run into someone you know, so we want that sort of vibe.”

“I don’t like the traditional café of sitting down at separate tables and that old school you don’t know your neighbours.”

At Pico, the menu focuses on quick and quality food and coffee, serving industry beans coffee and Noisette pastries and bread, delivered fresh from Melbourne every morning.

“We are just doing quick lunches you can take to work or to the beach… given that the park and beach are just over the road.”

The store name is also an Italian pun on the little space, which intentionally lends itself to a friendly, relaxed feel.

“We named it with the intention of keeping it small and busy,” Jessie said.

“Piccolo means small in Italian and then we just halved the word, because we realised the shop is really, really, small… we took it on overseas and got back and thought ‘Oh wow, it really is small’.”

Jessie described the café’s style as eclectic, with a circular window, a plethora of baked goods, house plants and a relaxed feel.

“Eclectic and organised chaos, a bit thrown together… it comes across as very relaxed, you can come into the shop with no shoes on and not feel out of place.

“And I think that’s what people like.”

Find Pico Point Lonsdale at 57 Point Lonsdale Road or keep up to date by following their Instagram at @picopointlonsdale.