Marios Cafe was established in 1986 by Mario Maccarone and Mario De Pasquale on this site and has traded continuously on this site ever since. While Lygon Street was reasonably well established as a destination for coffee and trattoria-style dining by the mid-1980s, Brunswick Street was undergoing a transition as many of Fitzroy's major industrial employers were closing, and the businesses in the area were shifting to reflect new demographics. Marios became popular among local artists and students who had moved to Fitzroy for its low rents, and has since been widely recognised as a Melbourne institution. Its enduring popularity helped spearhead Brunswick Street's transition into a destination for cafes, bars and dining in its own right throughout the 1990s and 2000s, which continues to the present day. A collection of Rennie Ellis photographs of Marios have been digitised for the State Library of Victoria and are accessible here: http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/189635SBS conducted interviews with Mario and long-serving waiter Massimo di Sora for the cafe's 30th anniversary in 2016; these can be viewed here https://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/italian/en/article/2016/04/27/tale-two-marios
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