Most “pop-up shops” emerge in vacant retail spaces, but The Princess’ Bed­room was dif­fer­ent: the shop itself popped up, in the form of a bright­ly-paint­ed car­a­van in a grav­el­ly old Ghuznee St carpark. Now it has com­pa­ny, in the form of a “Sausage Siz­zle” car­a­van in the adja­cent park­ing space, serv­ing an odd com­bi­na­tion of Kiwiana sausage sarnies, tem­pu­ra veg­eta­bles and hearty soups & stews.

Nei­ther this car­a­van nor its girli­er neigh­bour fit in with the emerg­ing high­brow design­er vibe across the street (Milk Crate, Quil­ters, Cus­toms and Bowen Gal­leries), but it sure beats a pud­dle-rid­den carpark. Per­haps we’ll see more of this car­a­van urban­ism set­ting up tem­po­rary shop in vacant spaces until we crawl our way out of the reces­sion, and it looks like a cheap and flex­i­ble way for small busi­ness­es to get up & run­ning in the gaps and fringes of the city.