Local roaster SOHO Coffee has taken over the former Cibo Pirie Street tenancy, where the business will launch a hospitality school-affiliated café.

Just a month or so after Cibo vacated its Pirie Street premises, another local coffee company has stepped in to fill the void.

SOHO Coffee Roasters will open a café at the site this November, with the business’ founder, Steve Fulton, partnering with managing director of hospitality school Alliance College, Ray Fa.

Alliance College, formerly the Adelaide Tourism and Hospitality School, has been operating in South Australia for more than 40 years and has a predominantly international student body, with 20% of students being domestic. The school trains students to become chefs, front-of-house workers and baristas.

This will be Ray’s first foray into café ownership, and the business will serve as a commercial kitchen for certificate III and IV students training in commercial cookery, along with certificate III and IV domestic diplomas in hospitality. Alliance students will prepare dishes for SOHO’s café as part of their course.

Ray noticed the current shortage of skilled baristas and hospitality workers and had the idea that running a café would offer practical opportunities to the more than 400 students studying at his organisation.

“According to our education curriculum, each day students will be learning about different ingredients, and during the course of study on that day they will have to prepare a dish by themselves that is properly plated and prepared in order to sell the food in the café,” Ray says.

“Normally, when you see a café it is just a café, but this is different, it is an indirect [relationship] with a coffee roaster, so you can expect the coffee to be different.”

While researching local roasters, Ray came across SOHO on Morphett Street and fell in love with the coffee.

“It is unlike any other coffee from the larger well-known cafés, like Cibo and Funk, and is being prepared like no other,” he says.

“This will distinguish us from other cafés. It will be the only shop on the street with coffee from a roastery.”

Cibo no more

Specialty roaster SOHO already has a cellar-door-style café at its Morphett Street site. Retail consumers can buy products for use at home, and the business roasts coffee on-site for wholesale delivery, and offers high-end coffee, equipment, accessories, and machine repair services.

Steve says Ray approached him to bring SOHO into the café/school concept, and he leapt at the idea.

“We were really impressed with Ray’s vision and experience within the catering industry, along with his passion for delivering something high end and different to the heart of Adelaide’s CBD, and will ensure that the SOHO brand is perfectly executed,” Steve says.

SOHO’s Pirie Street site will operate from Monday to Friday 7am ‘til 3:30pm, and will look to open for weekend brunch services in the future.

The café is slated to open in November. Follow SOHO on Instagram.