Meet the Flinders Street cafe owner running for city council
Ben Ayris is running in the council’s Central Ward by-election and told CityMag about what he wants to see the city do for small businesses, and a park lands passion project.
When CityMag meets Ben Ayris at TIBA Espresso on Flinders Street, we note a few empty 15-minute angle parks outside the café.
“We’ve actually been looking at having a parklet here,” Ben says.
Parklets are areas where city businesses convert parking or road space into outdoor dining areas, and the council fees to operate them have been criticised as hurting a hospitality industry “in survival mode”.
Ben says TIBA, which he co-owns with his partner Niel Rezende, is going through the process to create a parklet, but it’s “quite extensive”.
He says while it’s understandable that the process to install a parklet isn’t a quick one, the recent decision to remove a parklet from the Pirie Street restaurant Jack & Jill’s is “shocking”.
“The hospitality venues of the city are what bring us to life,” he says.
“It’s what brings tourists in, it’s what makes the workers want to stay back after work, and every time I went past Jack & Jill’s on a Friday night, that parklet was full, and now it’s a car park.
“It just doesn’t make sense to me, there must have been some compromise or some discussion there, we can’t just be doing that to small businesses.”
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Calls for a fairer rating system for outdoor dining and parklets have increased since the council removed the parklet from Pirie Street restaurant Jack and Jill’s earlier in June. Photos: CityMag.
Ben says that given the hospitality industry is struggling and the council receives more commercial than residential rate revenue, removing red tape for businesses to operate in the city is crucial.
“I feel like the council, in some aspects, are treating these cafes and hospitality venues as a revenue source, and that shouldn’t be the case,” he says.
“They should be subsidised and allowed to have these outdoor dining areas at a lower cost.”
Supporting small businesses is a key pillar of Ben’s campaign to run for the Adelaide City Council Central Ward by-election.
For TIBA, Ben says they’re looking at parklet options because the 15-minute parks outside the Flinders Street café are often empty during the week.
“It could be because they’re only 15 minutes, so it’s handy for people who just want to quickly come in and pick up a coffee and leave, but most of the customers are residents, they do walk here,” he says.
“I would say on weekends, they’re more popular, and that’s because there’s no parking restrictions.”
TIBA Espresso opened in September 2024 and is named for Niel’s hometown of Curitiba in Brazil.
Ben says he recalls council plans to upgrade Flinders Street that were floated in 2023, but the Flinders Street upgrade is not prioritised in the council’s upcoming budget, and main street upgrades are focused on Hindley, Hutt and O’Connell Streets.
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“My concern is that the way that the council’s finances are at the moment, maybe none of these upgrades will end up happening, and it’ll be the businesses that suffer in the end,” Ben says.
“There’s a lot of bickering to and fro, but we just need to get on with it and do it.”
Ben says he doesn’t want to see his favourite cafes moving to the suburbs because it’s easier and cheaper to run a business outside the CBD.
“We’re kind of seeing that a little bit with retail as well, for example, Burnside Village, they’re attracting stores that are not in the CBD,” he says.
“Flagship stores for Adelaide should be in the CBD, they shouldn’t be in the suburbs.
“It just doesn’t make any sense, and to me, that’s a policy failure from the council; they should be able to have these precincts for these luxury and market stores in the city, that’s where they belong.”
Ben has lived in the city for seven years, and this isn’t his first run at Central Ward – he unsuccessfully ran for the 2022 council election, which was overturned by a judge after a finding of illegal ballot handling.
He’s an active member of his community, a financial planner by day, a founding member of the Adelaide Apartment Owners Association and Adelaide Park Lands Association deputy president.
Protecting the park lands is another major part of his campaign platform, wanting to see more funding committed to re-greening unused areas and progressing the Adelaide Recreation Circuit.
The circuit is an uninterrupted continuous loop around the park lands, including things like bridges and tunnels, for walkers, runners and cyclists. Ben thinks it will be a major tourism drawcard.
He says while there’s no funding commitment, the Park Lands Association met with the Premier about it and the government is aware and interested in how the project could benefit the city.
“I use the park lands a lot for running, but when you have to constantly stop at traffic lights, it really interrupts you, and it’s also not safe a lot of time as well,” Ben says.
“So that’s something that I really want to champion, I understand it’s a big project, and it’ll be chipped away out in stages, but we just got to get the ball rolling.
Polling day for the Adelaide City Council Central Ward by-election is August 25, with voting materials being mailed out to city residents between July 29 and August 4.