Cafes for just hanging out in

Darlinghurst

• Le Petit Cremé, 116 Darlinghurst Rd, Darlinghurst. This is one of my favourite places for breakfast. Great food, OK coffee, friendly staff. It gets busy on weekends, especially when the weathers not great (they suspect a lot of their regular clients hit the beach cafes at Bondi or Bronte on sunny days). I like to park the bike on the footpath out the front, and drink Lattes French-style out of bowls... Hmmmm, bowls of latte...
• Tropicana, Victoria St, Darlinghurst. (they're now back in their old place on the city side of Victoria St) Full of film crews and art crowd. Its kinda noisy inside (all hard surfaces and tiled floors), and the food is a little limited, but its got tables overlooking the street and its a fun place to peoplewatch...
• Colluzi, Victoria St, Darlinghurst. This is the "other cool crowd" on Victoria St, you'll see the early morning lycra clad pushbike riders gathering here, and the shiny new italian motorscooter riders, and the old italian and greek guys drinking strong espresso. Its a tiny place with a whole bunch of stools scattered on the footpath, which means balancing your toast on your knee, but this informality also makes it easy to strike up conversation with your fellow coffee drinkers. (If this place goes broke in the next few months, it's got nothing to do with me introducing Melvin to Mecca, OK?)
• Fellinis, Victoria St, Darlinghurst. Great un-pretentious italian food. I used to live around the corner and I'd eat here 2 or 3 nights a week. Nothing amazing, but reliably comforting.

Camperdown

• The Deus Cafe, 98 Parramatta Rd, Camperdown. Part of (or next door or attached too) Deus Ex Machina - a cafe and a cool bike shop, what more could you ask for? Well, better coffee for a start, and the service goes downhill when they're busy-ish on weekends (though its always been fine when I've dropped in on weekday mornings). That said though, it _is_ a cool place - its a huge room with super high ceilings and a couple of big communal tables, as well as some cozy corners with lounges and armchairs. They've usually got an exhibition of interesting bikes in there too, they had one of the replicas from The Worlds Fastest Indian movie in there for a while with a bunch of other Indians in various stages of restoration, and last time I dropped by they had a collection of vintage speedway machines and a little vintage midget racecar.

Leichhardt

• Café Gioia & Pizzeria, 126 Norton St, Leichhardt. About the only place in Leichhardt which has off street parking. The coffee used to be OK, but has gone downhill.

Cremorne/Neutral Bay

• Oven, 89 Parraween Rd, Cremorne. Now promoted to a _serious coffee_ cafe. New owners Jimmy and Ben took over from Dieter in late '06 or early '07, and have got Paul Bassett assisting them - the coffee is now _great!_
• Maisys, 164 Military Rd, Neutral Bay. Lots of other people seem to like hanging out here, I seem to always find really bad service and somewhat mediocre food. Maybe I'm just being too picky though, as I said a lot of other poeple like it. It has the _big_ drawcard of being open 24 hours, and its _way_ better than City Extra which is pretty much your only other choice of cafe at 4:30am...

Bondi

• Too Fatz, Shop 6/ 152 Campbell Pde, Bondi. You actually want to approach this one from the road behind Campbell Pde, and park either in the cul-de-sac right in front of the cafe, or (if you're feeling lucky with the parking cops) on the pedestrian walkway section. They're got a Classic old Vespa and a GPz900 in the cafe, and they've also got a cool fishtank for any non-bike fixated guests you might bring along...

Others

• Mt White Cafe, Old Pacific Highway, Mt White. In the middle of 25km of possibly the best bike riding road near to Sydney, the Old Pacific Highway. The food's edible (mostly), the coffee's drinkable (just), but on a sunny day you'll get upwards of 400 bikes parked there... Well worth dropping in from a social point of view.
• Pie In The Sky, Old Pacific Highway, Berowra. This one has better food than Max's, but it's right near the beginning of the road, and hence ends up being more a pushbike hangout than a motorcycle one. Good pies though! Nicer chips than Maxs too...
• Robinson Pie Shop, at the top of Macquarie Pass, Robertson. This is one of those places that older bikers sometimes rave about, but isn't actually a very good cafe. Maybe they used to make fabulous pies, but they're kinda ordinary these days. On the other hand, they're definitely no worse that the cafe in the Cheese Factory closer into town, and not nearly as overpriced as they are. My pick of the cafes in RObertson if the Three Creeks, in a small complex of businesses on the right as you ride west into the Robertson town centre, unfortunately they keep kinda odd hours there and I often turn up just as they're "setting up for dinner" or something... The Pie Shop is worth visiting mainly cause of the roads you get to ride on the way there - which is as good a reason to eat somewhere as any...
• Mt Victoria Hotel, cnr Pattersons Causeway and Great Western Highway, Mt Victoria.
• The Stanwell Tops Icecream Van