Our story

STREAT is the culmination of many years of dreaming, crafting, and refinement between the founders, Rebecca Scott and Kate Barrelle.

From 2004-2006 Rebecca Scott and Kate Barrelle worked for KOTO, a training program and restaurant providing Vietnamese street youth with life and job skills. It was during this time that they became increasingly convinced of the power of social enterprise to improve the wellbeing of the world’s most vulnerable people.

With her knowledge of the workings of KOTO, in 2007 Rebecca embarked upon a study tour of Thailand, Laos and Indonesia where she visited similar projects. During this tour, she saw some outstanding examples of social enterprise which prompted her further focus on this topic in her Masters of International and Community Development. It was from these key experiences and research that STREAT was born.

In early 2008 a decision was made to test the pilot in Melbourne, primarily because of the strong partnership opportunities and the social enterprise expertise within the city. Through the pilot program, STREAT wants to test the model and develop the strategies, policies and procedures to expand the model further.

Inspired by the ability of hawkers within South-East Asia to deliver the most amazing street food dishes from very basic, portable equipment, Rebecca and Kate started to conceptualize their mobile street cafes. A street café is essentially a cluster of vending carts which can serve a range of street food dishes to people directly on the streets. The concept removes the walls of a standard café and takes the kitchen directly onto the streets. It also brings the excitement of experiencing a live cooking demonstration, particularly as the menus chosen are often highly theatrical when being made. In this sense, the street café brings together the best elements of the outdoor café experience, a live cooking demonstration, hawker food, and watching a good busker.

2009 was a year of building the organisation's foundation, ready to kick-start the program in 2010.