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Smith & Daughters founder Shannon Martinez was considering closing her businesses. Now she’s got a swish new spot in the CBD. And this is just the beginning.
Lunchtimes are about to get a lot more delicious for city workers and tourists. Shannon Martinez’s pioneering plant-based cafe and grocer Smith & Deli – maker of a McMuffin riff and legendary hot jam doughnuts – is opening this weekend on Degraves Street. It adds an all-day, vegetable-focused offering to the perennially busy CBD laneway connecting Flinders Street to the rest of the city.
The second location for Smith & Deli, which was born in Fitzroy in 2015 before relocating to Collingwood with sister restaurant Smith & Daughters in 2021, also marks a different accomplishment for Martinez.
“In all honesty, I was gearing up to close,” says Martinez of both the deli and the restaurant, now rechristened Smith & Daughters Social Club. “I had been fighting as hard as I could, but we were running on dregs.”
‘It’s a lot to go from one of the lowest times in my life to watching this thing become what I always wanted it to be.’
Shannon MartinezImpact investor Kelly Jarrett initially came to Martinez for advice about opening her own plant-based business, but Martinez had other ideas: “Join the party with me!”
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Now with Jarrett as a co-owner of Tomorrow Food Group, the new parent company of Smith & Deli and Smith & Daughters, the future is looking bright. “The only thing stopping us from being properly successful was investment,” says Martinez.
The new Degraves Street shopfront will function as an “upscale cafeteria” with a rotating selection of hot dishes you can mix and match on your own market plate. You might find anything from red lentil dhal to crispy tofu with Thai basil, cauliflower cheese to roasted carrots with tahini and date molasses. “We’re making this place far more plant-forward, so expect minimal mock meats,” says Martinez.
Many of Smith & Deli’s most popular items have made their way to the CBD, including the McMuffin-esque Egg Martinez, pies and sausage rolls, and the jam doughnuts. Also find grab-and-go salads and sandwiches, and ready-made freezer meals to take home.
Later in the day, the deli morphs into a tapas bar, serving the kind of plant-based snacks you might’ve found at South Yarra’s now-closed Lona Misa, where Martinez was a consultant. Think dips and pickles, “cheesy” croquetas and Spanish tortilla, and even kofta. And to drink? Gilda-topped martinis and the kalimotxo, with cherry wine and treacle cola.
Martinez has transformed the former Howm cafe site into “a maximalist European deli” with a colourful new mural marking the spot, and seating both inside and out.
Smith & Deli CBD is just stage one of the expansion. There are plans to open a third, on the south side; a fourth, interstate in Brisbane; and then, Martinez says, “We hope to hit every other state”.
She’s thinking beyond state lines for home delivery too, with the service already operating across New South Wales as well as Victoria; South Australia is up next. And she’s working on a wholesale line of vegan products for chefs to buy.
After so much uncertainty about the longevity of her businesses, “It took me a while to get my head back in the game, but I can say I’m finally reinvigorated,” says Martinez.
“It’s a lot to go from one of the lowest times in my life to watching this thing become what I always wanted it to be.”
Smith & Deli CBD opens on Sunday, June 21.
Open breakfast, lunch and dinner daily
16 Degraves Street, Melbourne, smithanddeli.com
