Vickie Burkinshaw has made the difficult decision to close The Curious Rabbit after five years of offering a safe space for the Wagga community. Photo: Chris Roe.
Much-loved Wagga cafe The Curious Rabbit will close its doors on Wednesday night (30 April) after serving the community as an inclusive art space for more than five years.
Cafe owner Vickie Burkinshaw said she was proud of the community that the space has attracted, admitting it had outgrown the space.
“It was a big, big decision to make,” Ms Burkinshaw said.
“After five years of providing a safe space for our community, one of the things I guess I’m most proud of is that a lot of people feel that they can turn up on their own and join in with the fun and feel safe and supported.
“We’ve supported, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of artists in all of the formats, whether you’re a visual artist or performing artist or a drag artist.
“From our perspective, it’s about saying, ‘Well, you know, what’s next?’
“We’ve kind of punched above our weight as a small venue. With the lease coming up, and you know, we want to do some things and change some things, and with that it’s time to have a rethink.”
While the popular venue may be closing, Ms Burkinshaw said this would not be the end and that she had plenty more rabbits to pull from her hat.
“We’ll be popping up in other places during the interim,” she said.
“We’ll be utilising that Curious Rabbit brand and sense of community to activate some of the places that need a bit of activation around Wagga.
“It’s about taking some time out and then having a rethink about, ‘OK, if we were to start with a blank canvas, we’d talk to the community in a couple of months and ask about what have you missed most, about not having the Rabbit, and what would it look like if we started again with that blank canvas?'”
Ms Burkinshaw said the thing she was most proud of during her time as owner was creating a place that operated on curiosity and kindness.
“People feel that they can turn up and that they are safe,” she said.
“We’ve been a hub for our First Nations and our queer community as well as a place for people that have had loss or felt isolated. We’ve created a real sense of community that I’m really proud of.”
Ms Burkinshaw said the list of people to thank for The Curious Rabbit’s success was too big to detail properly, but asserted that without a strong sense of community, it never would have come as far as it did.
“Thank you to everybody who’s ever come in for a coffee or a hot chocolate, or a piece of our famous carrot cake or brownie,” she said.
“Thank you to the people who continue to support all of our events and who foster that sense of curiosity.
“Quite often, people turn up and don’t know what to expect, but they turn up anyway. Thanks to every single one of our customers, every single one of our artists who have trusted me with their vision.
”I feel really honoured that people have put their trust in me on so many different levels.”
