Community-focused institution Cornersmith has announced the permanent closure of its Annandale café, citing increasing costs and lower spend by customers. Cornersmith first burst onto the Sydney scene when Alex Elliot-Howery and her husband, James Grant opened the sustainability hub in 2011 in Marrickville.

The idea was simple – to create an environmentally-conscious, community-driven space where you could get great produce, learn a skill or two, and contribute to the cause. Honey with a specific Inner-West profile was harvested from a rooftop hive, backyard produce was traded for coffee credits and the kitchen functioned as a closed circle producing as little waste as possible.

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The original Marrickville café closed in 2019, then the ‘picklery’ in 2021, and now the final straw has taken the Annandale location, which opened in 2016.

Rising overheads and people pinching their pennies have spelled disaster for Elliot-Howery and Grant, the latest casualties in a cost of living crisis.

In a statement on the Cornersmith website, the co-owners said, “The COVID years took the wind out of our sails and now the reality is that the hospitality industry, like our food system is a bit broken. It seems impossible to do the right thing environmentally, keep customers happy and stay independent and afloat financially.

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We tried bloody hard and while our passion and purpose hasn’t changed, our bodies, brains and bank balances are a bit exhausted.”

In years gone by, Cornersmith ran workshops on the art of preserving, pickling and fermentation, leading the charge of home-picklers across the city. Despite their best efforts, surviving in a post-lockdown world has proven more than challenging, it’s downright brutal.

While the closure of the Annandale site marks the end of one chapter, it is not the end of the story for Cornersmith. An update on the café’s website provides a ray of hope for the stalwart’s many fans. Alex will continue to teach cooking classes at The FoodLab Kitchen in Strathfield and “no doubt Jimmy will get bored and start looking for a new shop.”

The duo haven’t specified when the final service will be for the Annandale café but it’s anticipated by the end of February.

You can pop into Cornersmith for a final goodbye at 88 View Street, Annandale. Check the website for full statement. 

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