You might not put political journalist and café owner in the same bucket, but Brendan Wrigley has discovered some surprising overlaps.
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The 29-year-old, whose café is in the heart of Ballarat, would like to see more hospitality and retail venues opened by younger people.
"It's a new generation of people who are doing great things," he said.
"I hope that really continues over the next 10 years."
From high school at Ballarat Grammar, Mr Wrigley went to study journalism at RMIT University in Melbourne.
While studying, he worked in hospitality and "loved the industry," but always wanted to be a journalist.
Mr Wrigley came back to Ballarat to work at The Courier, focusing on politics.
"I always had a passion for politics, particularly growing up," he said.
"That was probably the element of journalism that excited me."
Coming back to hospitality
Mr Wrigley found his way back to the hospitality industry when he left the paper and moved to London.
Unable to find a job in the journalism industry, he worked for a coffee place, called Rosslyn, owned by an Australian and Irish man.
"They've had some really impressive success over the last few years," Mr Wrigley said.
"I joined them when they only just kind of opened, but since then, they've opened another two sites and won a stack of awards."
Mr Wrigley said he learnt a lot about hospitality and quality while at the job.
"Probably more importantly [I learnt] the value they placed on service and doing the little things," he said.
"Remembering people's names, remembering details about them and being people first.
"That's what ultimately brings people back through the door."
Reconnecting with the hospitality industry Mr Wrigley realised he really loved "every aspect of his job".
"I kind of came to a realisation after a while that if I love this industry so much, why do I keep trying to run away from it?" he said.
"I'm obviously passionate about it, I should probably just embrace that."
Stepping into business
Mr Wrigley said this was a turning point for him and he decided to open his own place.
Cobb's Coffee opened in Lydiard Street on December 21, 2020, in the midst of COVID-19.
"I knew COVID-19 wasn't going to last forever, in the end taking the spot when we did was the best decision we could have made," he said.
"It allowed us to grow slowly with minimal staff early on and find our feet."
Mr Wrigley said he had learnt business in Ballarat is about the long game.
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The city might not have a massive population - yet - or the sort of viral overnight social media sensations that lead to lines out the door, but that means venues in town need to be consistent, he said.
"What you do have to do is be good at the basics every single day and do that for a long time," he said.
"I think we've done that but it's taken time."
Having his own place around the corner from Town Hall and the centre of the city, he sees a lot of people come through the doors.
"I probably get told more things now than I ever got told as a journalist," he said.
"I certainly have better relationships with the people that I used to harass on the phone every other day."
He said this has been one of the fun parts of owning a café and also the part of journalism he enjoyed the most - fostering relationships.
"I guess the point for me is the element of journalism that I really enjoyed is something that I still get to do every single day."