Friends Of The Earth

This is my local. Great laid back vibe, good coffee and they sell the amazing crumbs bakery cakes (the raspberry danish is to die for!) The service can sometimes be a little slow but it adds to the charm for me and reminds me to slow down and chill. Staff are always really friendly too. Great place to sit and relax.

Popped in here for lunch while walking around Melbourne and thoroughly enjoyed it. A reasonably sized plate of very delicious food, nice atmosphere, cool products on sale and lots of people doing the same thing and filling their bellies with yummy goodness.

This is by far my favorite place in Melbourne. I love it here!

For all its foibles and clique atmosphere I must say I am a big fan of FOTE. They do a delicious chai, coffee is OK and the vegetarian fare served at lunch is delicious. You pay $ 8 for a small plate and around $ 11 for a large serving of various salads, tofu and other delicious vege bits de jour. After your meal you can stock up on all kinds of pulses, grains, herbs and more by the kilo… and it’s cheap too!
The service is a bit slow and strange, but if you’re willing to just relax and enjoy it FOTE comes highly recommended.

I like Friends of the Earth for their philosophy more than anything. As an organization they do amazing things. Unfortunately the same can’t really be said about their small organic, fair trade shop and café.
Don’t get me wrong they stock a number of good products that are well worth buying. And their café serves up some nice and healthy food. But really the shop or café is not going to blow anyway away with their brilliance or the array of products.
Still I do like eating at their café when I want something healthy. And it is sometimes nice to get a coffee there just to soak in the good vibes of the place. They also have some great bulk items for sale. But mostly the only reason I really shop their is to support a great cause more than anything else.

Yes, Friends of the Earth sounds hippie and alternative. It is but it’s great!
It’s a café/​organic food store where they focus on helping the environment and educating people on organic produce. Locally grown, seasonal produce, organic meals and fair trade teas are what Friends of the Earth are all about. This is a growing mentality that I support and feel like after visiting a place like this you understand why people are so passionate about it.
There really is nothing better than the really fresh, organically grown foods they have on offer where it’s guilt free and makes you feel fuzzy that you’ve helped the «little guys» and the environment.
It’s fantastic to wander through and look at the fresh products where the café idea is great and their coffee is amazing so it’s definitely worth stopping by!

I won’t go on about Friends Of The Earth because everyone knows what this place is about. But there’s a feature of this particular outlet on Smith St that will appeal to sharehouse hunters. On the side window facing the street, you can find notices of houses looking for housemates. Besides Readings in Carlton, it’s the best place to find these sorts of notices in the area and they get rotated pretty frequently. They also get looked at frequently, so you’ll be rewarded for frequent visits and for calling promptly.

Global environmental campaigning organisation Friends of the Earth’s Smith Street co-​op is as friendly and ramshackle a place as you’re likely to find. Stocking over 3,000 products — most of which are sold in bulk — including eco-​cleaning products, food, fruit and vegetables, this Smith Street ethical Mecca also houses a pretty good lunchtime café.
Selling tea and coffee alongside cakes, muffins and daily changing dishes, what Friends of the Earth’s co-​op lacks in slick corporate professionalism it more than makes up for with its ethical credentials — this is a fundraising initiative after all — and the knowledge that what you’re drinking/​eating is likely to be locally sourced, ethically sound and decidedly fairly traded.
I visited Friends of the Earth’s Food Co-​op for a coffee meeting not long ago, and first the service and then our coffees themselves did take a fair while to materialize. But then, Friends of the Earth’s co-​op and café is run wholly by volunteers to support countless good causes so you can’t really complain. The perfect place for a leisurely coffee or scrumptious lunch while stocking up on eco essentials. Just don’t go if you’re in a hurry.