There are cafés and coffee bars dotted all around Australia opened due to the founders’ inability to find a cup of good, local coffee – and that’s exactly how Coffee Cube came to be more than a decade ago.
Since opening in 2012 in Mount Warren Park, nestled between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, Coffee Cube has become a fixture of its local community. For its entire existence, the espresso bar has used Merlo’s espresso blend – after all it was coffee from the family-owned Queensland roaster that planted the seed for the venue’s Founder Roz North in the first place.
“My sons were rowing down at Surfer’s Paradise, and in the meantime I would go and get a coffee that would be made with Merlo beans,” says Roz. “When I got back into town, I couldn’t find anywhere to get a decent cup of coffee – nothing could match that experience.
“My only background in hospitality was growing up. My father used to manage pubs, where he would put me to work when I visited him in the school holidays.
“I just thought about it and wondered how difficult it could be to make a good cup of coffee, so I jumped in and started Coffee Cube.”
The setup of the espresso bar was unique to the Mount Warren Park region when it opened. Roz says there still isn’t another venue in the area operating in the same way, and with such a distinct focus on the coffee.
In the 13 years since, Roz has had to contend with poor reputations of venues before it and frequent flooding in the region, but she says the popularity of the venue has steadily climbed.
“There were two venues at our location before us that really struggled, so it took a little bit of time to really get off the ground,” she says.
“When we started, the demographic was largely elderly people who were set in their ways, but we kept up with consistent hours and used social media to our advantage.
“Then, when there was flooding, a lot of people had to close but we managed to stay open. This meant more people were exposed to what we were doing when before they might not have known we were here, and then they kept coming back.”
She says there are three things that are consistently praised about the venue, all of which are crucially important to running a successful espresso bar.
“We now get a lot of different customers in, but the praise directed to us is almost always one of three things,” she says.
“The coffee is consistently great, the speed at which they are served is good, and our staff are really friendly.”
Coffee Cube
Shop 1, 20-30 Mount Warren Boulevard
Mount Warren Park, Queensland 4207
Open Monday to Friday 5am to 3pm, Saturday and Sunday 6am to 1pm
This article appears in the December 2025 edition of BeanScene. Subscribe HERE.
