MioMia! Another cafe?

That’s right - there is another rather schmick looking cafe about to open in Ultimo. 

This one is called MIO MIA (though we may have the spelling wrong with that), and they are hoping to open this Wednesday (9 November 2011). It looks pretty savvy. You will be able to find Mio Mia at 645 Harris Street, Ultimo, approximately. It used to be a loading dock area but they’ve refitted it as an espresso bar, to fit approx 20 people. 

2011 has proved to be the year for Ultimo to make a complete transition into the uber-gentrified urban landscape that planners naively promised it would become in the 1990s. It might have taken 15+ years, but it seems that the boutique apartment developers and retail business is now streaming in, and frankly, we welcome the latter (though we are cautious about the implications of the former). Generally speaking, the more retail to open doors on Harris Street, the better. We have never appreciated the ‘dead-ness’ of the Ultimo end of Harris Street, even if we feel a bit funny about the gentrification of Ultimo. New businesses on Harris Street are better for pedestrian amenity, better for community life, great for promoting foot traffic, and this one involves coffee, which we will soon review. 

NB - the proposed hours of operation for this place are 7am to 10PM! It will be interesting if they stick to that, or just put it in the application, so as to cover their asses if they wanted to increase the hours later.