It is crammed with marble-topped, wrought iron tables, a fascinating collection of mismatched dining chairs, a few old armchairs, a low comfy couch, delightful mismatched china and sugar bowl doilies festooned with colourful beads.
What’s more its walls are positively groaning with artworks and quirky bits and bobs that either overtly or loosely relate to the Parisian theme.
Owner Sanjay Rajani is like a magpie on overdrive, constantly on the lookout for more decorative flotsam and jetsam and just when patrons think he has covered the entire place something else manages to squeeze in, miraculously appearing as though it’s always been there. There’s a name for this technique – it’s called seamless maximalism.
Among this pot-pourri of artworks one stands out. At first glance, one painting hanging above the front windows – an acrylic on canvas – appears as a portrait of three women seated at a café window, possibly in Paris.
Former Uxbridge art tutor Clive Jepson captured the image of Carol Anne Nicholas and her two daughters Aimee and Sara enjoying a coffee at the café’s highly coveted window seat on a very special day in December 2004. Sara was getting married the following day and the girls were finalising last-minute details.
Clive has known the Nicholas family for some time. Carol Anne, a teacher at Mellons Bay Primary for many years, taught art classes with Clive at Uxbridge and daughter Aimee worked there too, assisting with the children’s art classes.
In 2004, Clive wanted to paint a Parisian café scene and asked if the Nicholas women would be the subject of his artistic endeavour. They agreed. At the cafe while they enjoyed coffee, Clive took a series of photographs and four days later his painting titled The Day Before was completed.
“I’d always been inspired by the French Impressionists and thought Café Paris would be the ideal setting. It’s busy, a little eccentric and quite cool.” Under normal circumstances, Clive would have given the new work to the Nicholas family but funds were short at the time.
He took the painting to Sanjay, who bought it immediately and The Day Before was then hung above the popular window seat for all to enjoy.
For those wanting an update on events since 2004: Sara’s wedding went off beautifully and she and her husband Brendon Duck now have a two-year-old daughter called Georgia. Aimee, a trained nurse, went to London for nearly three years and since returning home has been working at a private hospital.
Carol Anne still teaches part-time at Mellons Bay Primary and Clive, now living in Mt Eden, still paints the occasional portrait when he’s not working as a gardener and part-time art teacher at a local school.
But what about Sanjay, who works front of house fielding all the queries on decor and his wife, Mika, who works full-time in the café’s busy kitchen? The cafe might not be everyone’s cup of tea – far too much going on for some – but when asked if she ever tired of Sanjay’s decorating addiction, Mika was philosophical.
“It all seems to add to the atmosphere of the place, and he’s been doing it for so long now that I don’t really take much notice. It keeps Sanjay happy and the customers seem to enjoy it too.”
