‘Soft clubbing': Gen Z swap alcohol for coffee as new dance venues emerge

Sydney Morning Herald

08-05-2025

It's not unusual to hear that nightlife is dying, as bars and clubs across Australia shut down. Gen Z and Millennials often bear the brunt of the blame for this. But perhaps, as Ntahilaja writes, today's youth (the loneliest generation) desire connection and fun just as much as their predecessors. The environments in which this happens just look a little different.
Last month, Fatboy Slim played an impromptu show to a packed crowd in a Melbourne fish and chip shop and many gyms and fitness studios now resemble nightclubs, with neon lights and the kind of music you'd expect to hear at a music festival. Everywhere, it seems, is a club – except the club.
Gwyther's cafe raves are just one of many events on Maple Social Club's calendar, including dinner parties and pickleball, but all have the same ethos: social connection, fun and accessibility.
She says one of the most common questions she is asked is whether it's okay to come alone to an event.
'I reckon we probably are about 50/50 of people coming solo versus people coming with friends, but I found that a lot of people who come solo to one will come together to the next event,' she says.
Loading
Romantic connection is part of it too – Gwyther and Connor are developing a dating app.
'They're not singles events, they're free community events. But really we see it as finding the right people that we would want on our platform,' says Gwyther.
In the inner-city Melbourne suburb of Cremorne, a different kind of experience marrying coffee and music has emerged.
On Air, founded by Deyon Murphy, 33, and Francesca Poci, 26, is a permanent cafe where you can grab a morning latte alongside live DJ sets and radio shows.
'We thought, what could be the most Melbourne idea we could do? And we thought coffee and DJs,' says Murphy, who previously worked in the music industry.
'So remove the alcohol element, remove the club element and make it something that people can come and enjoy every weekend and leave feeling full and not hungover.'
Murphy is careful to differentiate On Air from the heaving, caffeine-fuelled dance floors that have become popular on social media platforms like TikTok – although he acknowledges the trend has helped propel the business into the zeitgeist.
'We never wanted it to be a rave. We wanted it to be like a listening lounge or an experience, so people can come and discover different sounds and different artists in Melbourne.'
Loading
They chose Cremorne, which has been referred to as the 'Silicone Valley of Melbourne' for its proximity to young professionals.
'Our key demographic are young creative entrepreneurs really, and that's why we run the fashion series [a video series of interviews with Australian fashion designers they post on social media], and we're going to run a series on health entrepreneurs. That's the sort of people that we're trying to tie in to what we're doing,' says Murphy.
Indeed, Murphy' hopes for On Air is for it to become bigger than just a café. Their artists are featured on a YouTube channel, while Murphy hopes to eventually develop a record label as part of the business.
'It's about finding our community,' he says.
Tanya Mohan, 26, co-founded Mix&Matcha:AM earlier this year after witnessing the explosion of coffee clubs overseas.
'At the time when we were planning this, no one had done it in Melbourne and Australia, and so we decided to bring it down here.'
Mohan, alongside friends Winzwen Tan, DJ Shwads and Isabelle Tan held their first 'Coffee Meets Matcha Party', in collaboration with Singapore-based coffee club beans&beats, at the end of April.
'I've got a passion for music and my co-founder's [Tan] got a passion for making coffees and matchas, and so he specialises in that,' she says.
Loading
The response, Mohan says, has been huge.
'We've grown really quickly since launching and it hasn't even been a month, but it's been overwhelmingly positive,' she says.
Like Gwyther and Murphy, she thinks people her age are tired of traditional nightclub spaces.