Flinders Building cafe has a new owner

The demand for coffee remains high and where there’s good coffee there are opportunities for the surrounding businesses to promote themselves. Up at the top end of Bay Terrace’s shops is the Flinders Building and there you will find Rhona, who has recently bought the café on the ground floor of the building and renamed it Flinders Coffee.

Fresh from Darwin, Rhona Dunn has a background in business start-ups that include motels, take away food shops, supermarkets, art & craft stores, architectural drafting companies and cafes. This is also coupled with a vast amount of time in the aviation industry with coast watch and working as a technical writer preparing tender documentation for the resource sector and transportation industry. Needless to say, her first attempt at retirement on her arrival in Brisbane saw her realising that staying at home was not for her, she needed to get back into a business serving the public.

She checked out the businesses for sale in the Wynnum area, and spotted the café in the Flinders Building for sale. Rhona contacted the owner to make an offer only to be told that the café had just been sold to someone else.

However Christmas and New Year came and went and she noticed that the café had remained closed, so on an offchance she rang the previous owner to see if it had been sold. By luck she learned the sale had fallen through, and was able to start negotiations to purchase.

Now, instead of talking to her dogs, her day starts at the café at 6am and she winds up at about 3pm after the local office workers and parents from the local school have had their afternoon coffee. Already her business is beginning to expand and has just added a mobile coffee cart that can be booked for indoor and outdoor events (Editor’s note – it was at the WynnumCentral art/craft/vintage/retro market).

Many locals and visitors would have had a coffee from Rhona and her partner Rick Gawa and at some of the local events such as the school fete, polling day and the Twilight Bay run where coffee was supplied from her mobile coffee cart. They will really get to know the local community quite quickly as some of the schools are booking the coffee cart for their school events.

Rhona is keen to help promote the Wynnum Central area and was an immediate supporter of the promotional activities organised by David Bateson and supported by the Wynnum Chamber of Commerce. She’s always up for a good natter and is keen to support all businesses and the schools in the local area.