Inside Fox Coffee, Brisbane's 130kg-a-Week Espresso Powerhouse
How a humble family-run warehouse coffee roastery in Brisbane's inner north transformed into a local community hub.
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Think of Brisbane coffee, and you may envision iced latte walks by the river or packed sidewalk cafes serving flat whites in trendy Tenerrife. But, in an industrial suburb in Brisbane's north sits Fox Coffee: a coffee roastery and family business that has evolved into one of the city's largest operators, using around 130 kilos of beans every week.
Fox Coffee was born in 2016, after coffee roaster James May returned to Brisbane from Melbourne, where he had worked for Campos Coffee. After learning about the industry (in the peak of the specialty coffee boom), James asked his parents, Peter and Susan, to go into business together and do Brisbane coffee their way.
The plan began modestly. The family decided to build a "small" roastery with an espresso bar attached to see if they could gain traction in the wholesale market. They initially looked across Brisbane's inner suburbs before landing on an out-of-the-box contender. A rough-around-the-edges warehouse in Geebung.
"Geebung at the time was not a particularly popular suburb," Peter tells Concrete Playground. "But what we did realise is there were loads of people that lived in the area, and there wasn't much around." Located between Chermside's Westfield shopping centre and the major Sandgate Road, the May family opened the roastery Monday to Friday. That wouldn't last long.
"Some of the customers that started coming in used to say, 'Gee, if only you were open at the weekend, we might come in'. The rest is history," says Peter.
Fox Coffee began opening its doors on Saturdays (followed quickly by Sundays) until the weekend became the small roastery's busiest period. Families, cyclists, dog-walkers and tradies all flocked to the warehouse in Geebung to enjoy the specialty coffee that's usually reserved for the inner city.
Brisbane-Style Coffee
After experiencing Melbourne's fanatical coffee industry first-hand, James knew the Brisbane market deserved something different. Something uniquely Brisbane. Unpretentious, uncomplicated, and flavour that focuses on chocolate over exotic fruits and batch brews.
"It wasn't that people didn't like coffee up here. It's just they didn't care what people were doing in Melbourne," says James. "When I was leaving Melbourne in 2015, I was tired of drinking milky sour water because it was all light roasted, funky, and that's just not what we want up here. The clientele was different."
Fox Coffee were happy to fill the gap in the Brisbane market, and their wholesale blended beans now fly off the shelves. Crafted is their best-seller. It's a smooth, easy-drinking coffee with sweet notes of milk chocolate, toffee and hazelnut. Dusk is slightly heavier and bolder, and as James describes it, "big on the mud cakey kind of flavours". Finally, Hunter has a slight fruit edge, with milk chocolate and marmalade notes.
Fox Coffee's wholesale beans are a staple of the family-run business, and after ten years of growth, with thousands of kilos of beans and shots served at its espresso bar, the team decided it was time for a renovation.
Fox's New Era
With the growth of Fox's reputation and the Geebung area itself, the warehouse couldn't keep up with demand. The May family wanted to improve the space without stripping away the industrial character that made it what it is. The result is a smarter, more functional layout: clearer ordering points, better flow, more room to wait, and faster service, all while keeping that raw, roastery feel intact. "When you're doing that sort of volume of coffee, then you need to get the flow going better," says Peter.
The brand-new espresso bar has been designed by local interior designer Collectivus and features new espresso equipment, including two La Marzocco machines, six Markibar grinders, and two Übermilk frothers. The upgrade also includes upgraded retail shelving and an on-site kitchen that will serve Fox Coffee's existing menu of snacks, including focaccia toasties, brioche Vegemite scrolls, muffins, quiches and more.
Remaining Local
While Fox Coffee has grown exponentially from its humble Geebung warehouse beginnings, the team insists they're not chasing rapid expansion.
"We don't want to be bigger just for the sake of being big," says Peter. "I don't see it going from 150 kilos to 250 kilos. That's not the sort of business we want to be."
In a way, Fox Coffee tells the story of the Australian Dream. A family-run business that's seen local community success. It doesn't aim to be flashy or a leader in the hyper-competitive coffee industry. Instead, they want to continue focusing on their roastery and the local customers who've supported them from the start. The ones who helped turn a humble Geebung roastery into a community hub and cafe.
"We're serious about the business, but we're not too serious about ourselves. We want to have a good business that makes customers happy."
In a landscape that often leans toward the overly curated or overly complicated, that balance might just be Fox Coffee's biggest strength.
Visit Fox Coffee at 3 Ellison Rd, Geebung, QLD 4034.
