The founder of one of Sydney’s most beloved cafes, Badde Manors, died last week. His widow remembers the man and the mark he made.
People discovered themselves in and around the cafe – working, living, eating or drinking coffee there. Relationships were formed. Sexuality, creativity, politics, friendship and love were discovered.
When Badde Manors opened its doors on New Year’s Eve in 1982, after an agonising two-year fit-out, the cafe’s arrival was greeted with a ferocious embrace that completely surprised its naive but enthusiastic owners. Sebes was a lover of music – 70s jazz-rock, 50s rock-n-roll, jazz, funk, soul, all kinds of world music. He dictated the cafe playlist with an iron hand, but educated a generation in the process. Another employee’s post this week: “I remember the great music, and that is something I have taken away from my time at Baddies. Sometimes we would bring in a contraband mix and play it.
Always keen to explore new horizons and complicated machinery, Sebes bought a second-hand Carpigiani commercial gelato machine in the late 1980s, and experimented with manufacturing his own gelato. The project began with a trip to Sydney University’s Fisher Library to study the relevant chemical formulas.