Every Inner-City Cafe You've Ever Been To

On Stephanie's first shift at Morning Brown, the three owners take turns walking her through how a trendy, overpriced Melbourne cafe works, starting with what a door is. Customers are to be left waiting by the please-wait-to-be-seated sign until they give up and come to the counter, and anyone wanting a takeaway coffee gets a look of contempt whether or not they brought a reusable cup. Broden pushes the cafe's merch, which staff may take as long as it comes out of their pay, and he docks her for the apron too. The house speciality turns out to be platypus milk, a fact one owner regrets ever sharing with Mark. Stephanie is taught to flatter a mother and daughter by asking if they are sisters, which goes wrong when one woman breaks down and confesses that the other is really her daughter, and that the woman the daughter calls Mum is her grandmother. After a lecture on the availability ledger and on hospitality as a lifelong career in an overcrowded, volatile market, Stephanie admits she took none of it in and asks whether she should just serve customers.