Professionals Serendipity 
Shay Paul owns The Treehouse, a lovely café right on the corner of Gallery Walk, with her partner Dwayne. Today she shares with us just what makes this coffee shop such an important part of our community, and where the caffeine that fuels Tamborine Mountain really comes from.
by Kyle Hitchmough
How long have you owned The Treehouse? How did you get started?
We got this place in April 2017. We had a business in Townsville first. We have four kids but when we had our first baby I wanted to work, but I also wanted to stay with the bub. So, we opened a coffee trailer in the front yard, and I ran it from there, which was fun. When we had the second bub, Dwayne left his job and started a coffee trailer in a park near a school in Townsville. That went really well so we continued for a few years. When I saw this café up for sale, we moved here and opened it up.
What kinds of food do you serve, besides the coffee?
Brunch is our main thing. We have a few different brunch selections. Toasties, side bowls, salads… our biggest thing is using local ingredients. We get our bread from the local bakery, our meat from the butcher up here, fruit and veg from the local grocer… our milk from For Real Milk, which is a Scenic Rim milk company. Our coffee beans are roasted and grown in North Queensland. Everything we try to keep directly on the mountain or at least within Queensland, that’s our focus.
Do you have a most popular item? What’s your favourite?
Food-wise? Eggs benny is always a hit on the weekends. Dwayne makes his own hollandaise sauce which people love. And then coffee’s always a hit. That’s the go-to! My favourite… the Russian benny. It’s like an eggs benedict but we make our own Russian sauce. It’s really yummy.
What goes into an average day of running The Treehouse for you?
You come in early to set up, get all the tables ready, then get inside ready, prep up the kitchen for the day, and wait for people to come so you can serve them! Simple as that.
Do you find you get a particular kind of clientele over others?
I feel like we get a lot of locals, which is awesome as we keep our money locally, so it’s great that we get local customers. Obviously because of where we’re located, we get mountain visitors too, because this is a tourist strip. I feel like we get a good laid-back crowd, really nice customers, and that’s good.
What’s your opinion of the community?
I’m local, it’s a good little community. Lots of people up come here to retire, young families because the schools are really good. I guess for the younger studying generation there’s not a lot to do. I love the weather—I like that it gets a little bit cool. It’s still close to everything, but it’s not hectic up here.
What do you think your café provides to the area?
Just a sense of keeping it in the community, a sense of keeping it local. Our slogan is keeping it real, keeping it happy, and we genuinely mean that. We use real produce, we keep it local, and we’re always so happy to do anything for our customers. I feel like these days it’s easy to buy in cheap stock and put lots of young staff on, which can be fine, but I feel like every café then just ends up being the same which is why we use good produce and keep it local.
What do you enjoy most about doing this?
People! Talking to people all the time, but also just being able to really get involved with good products and good coffee.
What would you say has been the highlight of your time working here?
The overall experience. Tamborine’s small and it can be hard to get into the community, but it’s been really good for us up here and we love it, and it’s been an awesome experience so far.
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Or email the writer at kyle.hitchmough@hotmail.com, and follow me on Twitter @realcasualrvws.
