Sometimes it feels as if there is a bit of a 'merry-go-round' of cafes and breakfast spots in the Brisbane inner city suburb of Paddington. There are some mainstay cafes that seem to be able to weather the storm, such as the Java Lounge (see post here) and Sassafrass (see post here), and stay around for generations. Others though seem to just disappear overnight, Eurovida (see post here) and Cockadoodle Cafe (see post here). While it's always sad to see a cafe shut up shop, it does provide an almost never ending supply of new cafes to check out.
The Funky Monkey is one of the newer cafes that has moved into a recycled business, right where a little chocolate cafe used to be. Located right across the street from Paddington Central, the little cafe with the cool name occupies the style of Queenslander that dominates Latrobe Terrace, most of which used to be residences. The Funky Monkey has a name that really appealed to me, who doesn't like a monkey, right? And a funky monkey? Well, that was always going to draw me in.
We had no trouble at all finding the Funky Monkey, it's pretty much front and centre in Paddington Central and we were early enough to be able to score a street park. It was pretty quiet when we arrived and I was beginning to think that our strategy getting to cafes early was robbing us of much needed sleep in the mornings. With the proliferation of cafes and restaurants across Brisbane, it had been a while since we'd come across a cafe where we'd had to wait, with Shouk being the last (see post here). Perhaps we needed to be less concerned with not getting a seat for breakfast without a wait...
With practically every seat available, I dithered about looking for the right table to sit at, it seemed as if I was having a 'Sheldon Cooper' moment, but eventually we settled down at a table that had the right ambiance. It was a beautiful morning, so I wanted to be out of the sun but still have that feeling of openness. With a name like the Funky Monkey, I was expecting a little more of an eclectic feel but the closest we got was the brightly coloured tables in the cafe, each a different colour and each brighter than the last! Our table was a bright green...
