The coffee bar and cafe is the project of Mayfield-based husband and wife team, Jarrod and Ieva Faulkner, who searched for 18 months before finding an ideal site for their business on Maitland Road.

They bought the space off the plan and a lengthy wait for the build to be completed meant the signage for Forky's hung from the awning for quite some time.

"We had it installed over a year ago and everyone started messaging us straight away saying, 'Oh, you're opening. I saw your sign up', even though the main building wasn't even finished," Jarrod laughs.

"So all the locals around here have been waiting very patiently for us to open."

The couple opened the doors last week with a limited menu of coffee and pastries.

"We ended up opening a week earlier than we planned to purely because everyone kept coming in while we were working and asking, 'When are you opening?'," Jarrod says.

"We said, 'Look, we better just get the thing open'."

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Forky's food menu is up and running.

Chef Casey Bell, who previously worked in kitchens at high-end restaurants in the Hunter Valley, has designed a fresh, seasonal menu that is "short but really punchy".

"Most people want simple meals done really well. That's our idea with the menu. Not to overcomplicate things," Jarrod says.

"Keep it simple, keep it fresh and keep it super tasty. That's the key."

Breakfast options include eggs (fried, scrambled or poached) on sourdough ($12) with a choice of sides at extra cost; Forky's bacon and egg roll with chipotle bacon, eggs, spinach, rocket and aioli on brioche bun ($12); chilli scrambled eggs with sambal, fresh chilli, rocket and feta on sourdough ($15); mushroom trio with poached eggs, kale, pesto and whipped feta on sourdough ($18); French toast with mixed berry compote and honey mascarpone ($20); or a brekky burrito with chipotle bacon, scrambled eggs, hash brown, spinach, house beans and aioli ($20).

The lunch menu offers the Reuben toastie with corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing on sourdough ($16); roast pumpkin toastie with pumpkin, halloumi, pesto and rocket on sourdough ($14); warm noodle salad with vermicelli noodles, broccoli, cauliflower, bean sprouts, cucumber and sweet soy dressing ($14); and roast veg salad with sweet potato, beetroot, candied walnuts, kale, quinoa and honey lemon dressing ($20).

The southern-fried chicken burger ($16) with crunchy buttermilk chicken, slaw, pickles, cheese and sriracha mayo, has already proved popular, selling out on the first day the menu launched.

A selection of pastries and baked treats are also available.

As for the coffee, the cafe has launched with one blend but plans to build on its coffee offering as the business grows, along with the addition of milkshakes and smoothies.

Forky's serves a blend from award-winning Newcastle roastery, Darks Coffee Roasters, who worked closely with the team at the cafe during the set-up phase.

Darks' U47 blend, which Ieva describes as a "real crowd pleaser", is a medium dark roast of beans from Colombia, Guatemala and Papua New Guinea with a flavour profile of dark chocolate, malt, hazelnut and brown sugar.

"We had one meeting with these guys at their roastery in Mayfield and we knew straight away they would be great to work with," Jarrod says.

"Their coffee is excellent, too."

The outlook from the cafe isn't bad either.

Jarrod and Ieva, who moved to Mayfield in 2017 after living in her homeland of Latvia for a decade, fell in love with the view from the window across to Islington Park's enormous fig trees.

"If people are lucky enough to come in early when the sun is rising, it really looks quite majestic coming through those trees," Jarrod says.

"That was one of the key factors when we came across this site. We really believed in the location across from the park, the outlook and the fact that Islington has become a hip inner-city suburb.

"Since we opened, the locals have come in to greet us and everyone has been so positive and are so happy a cafe has opened here.

"The community is really supportive and it's exciting."

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