Rabbit Hole Cafe | The Love Story Behind Seven Hills’ Favourite Cafe

Author // Shannon Edwards, Place Bulimba

Painted black with a delightfully decorated interior, this old weatherboard cottage is a favourite amongst locals at Seven Hills.

The Rabbit Hole Café & Bar not only offers a mouth-watering brekky, lunch and now dinner menu, but it’s laid back environment welcomes the whole family (even the fur babies).

What makes Rabbit Hole Café even more special, is the fairytale-like love story behind its start-up.

We spoke with owner of the café, Amanda Metcalf, who shared the background of how the café was discovered.

Tell us about the history of The Rabbit Hole Café & Bar

I’ve been in business for quite a while now, prior to having cafes I had retail stores.

When it was time to move on from a store I owned in Paddington, I was given advice to open up in the suburbs - then I heard about a vacancy in Seven Hills.

I remember going for a drive and as we were approaching the spot I knew I’d seen it before.

I had a dream a few years prior that portrayed everything that the café was - located at the bottom of a hill, a little house with a red roof that was called ‘Rabbit Hole Café’ and I owned it.

Straight away I knew it was meant to be.

I remember that at the time people close to me were a little unsure of the name, but I knew I couldn’t stray from it because it felt like destiny.

It has been four years now and I’ve never looked back since.

I also met my partner Matt here at the café, which makes it really special to me.

He was a customer and would come in every day for coffee.

We fell in love and had our beautiful baby – I guess you could say I met my Prince Charming right here at the coffee machine.

What was the concept behind the café?

To be honest, I can be a really fussy eater so I wanted to create a menu that was simple and could be enjoyed by everyone.

I’m from North Queensland and up there I was used to having big portion sizes whenever we went out to eat, so that’s exactly what I wanted to offer to my customers.

I decided that I wanted lots of different options on the menu that were all home-style cooking - basic and delicious.

I also had a strong vision for the customer service.

I want the café to be a space where people feel welcome` and can come to meet people from the local community.

Okay, let’s talk about the famous menu. What are your favourite dishes?

Everything on our menu is fantastic and made with a lot of love, but I would say we have four most popular items.

The first would be the ‘build your own’ option, which is eggs on toast, how you like them, with sides of your choice.

The second would be our Eggs Benedict, which is always a popular breakfast option but we have three different varieties from bacon, salmon and pulled pork.

These options really allow our customers to tailor their meal to suit their personal tastes.

The corn fritters are another winner. They’re my mum’s special recipe and you just can’t go past them – they’re to die for.

Here at the Rabbit Hole Café we also have the ‘Corso Salsa’, which is very unique.

Our chef, who came on-board with us in the first six months, invented the specialty salsa and named it after the street we’re on - The Corso.