The Invaluable Valve
In 1963, Café-Bar invented a unique butterfly valve that could dispense an exact amount of instant coffee or powdered tea without picking up moisture. This was at the time a major breakthrough! Operations were soon set up in a small, converted house in Union Street, North Sydney, and production of the valve was underway. A year later, the first run of 50 blue-painted metal models, known as the Industrial 120/4, were sold into factories, and so the success story of Café-Bar began.
The Enjoyment of Coffee Making into the Workplace
Feedback from customers indicated a demand for a compact machine that would suit small offices and truly complement the more modern concept of their workplaces. Café-Bar commissioned the Sydney company, Nielsen Design to create a machine that was modern in appearance and economical to use. The "Compact" was released in 1974, featuring futuristic styling and came in avocado green, beige, blue and burnt orange, colours that suited the groovy fashion of the times. The same year, it was awarded a Good Design label by the Industrial Design Council of Australia. It also received the Prince Philip Award for Australian Design and the Australian Classic Design Award.
The Compact was replaced by the Quintet in 1989, which was styled for the office of the 1990s. It blends in with the colors and textures of today's computers and fax machines, and it's familiar car-style dials made it easy to use. It was also a durable unit made out of high temperature plastic for longer life, eliminating the possibility of corrosion and reducing calcium and lime
build up.
Since then Café-Bar has been continually developing and designing new, reliable, and economical products.