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Victoria Coffee Palace
11 Pakenham St, 1895
The Victoria Coffee Palace at 11 Pakenham St was built in 1895. A coffee palace was a hotel which did not sell alcoholic beverages. My 2020 snap.
No longer a backpackers, the VCP in context. My 2015 photo. That's the sign on the left of the Pakenham Street Art Space.
File:Freotopia westend img 11pakenham.jpg
Google Maps Streetview snap (with flare) from when the building was still a YHA hostel. I believe there was for a time a kangaroo looking out from that balcony on the left, and that the lodgings might have been called Roo on the Roof (like Paul Rigby's restaurant at 10 High Street—though it was in the basement). Maybe someone could confirm that?
David Hutchison's photo from 2006 or before >
His 2006 note: "Former Victoria Coffee Palace. No. 11. ‘Coffee palace’ was the common name for a temperance hotel in Australia in the nineteenth century. This one was built in 1895 and is now used for backpackers’ accommodation operated by YHA Australia Hostelling International. They also operate in the adjoining Willshire and Feely Building (No. 15)."
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 18 September, 2014 and hosted at freotopia.org/hotels/victoria.html (it was last updated on 30 November, 2023), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.