Coffee King Dean Merlo wants to find and train 500 potential baristas
Dean Merlo has built one of the country’s largest coffee roasters over the past 30 years and now wants to find and train 500 baristas for clients who are struggling to find staff.
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WHEN Dean Merlo made the leap from barrister to barista three decades ago the idea of a Brisbane coffee culture was more of a vision than a reality.
Inspired by what he saw in Europe he founded Merlo Coffee and opened his first espresso bar at 344 Queen St in the CBD in November 1992, just down the road from where his father Gino opened the renown Cafe Milano in 1958 with Queensland’s first espresso machine.
Merlo admits “it doesn’t feel like 30 years” since he opened for business in the Golden Triangle which is now labelled by some wags as the “Caffeine Triangle”.
“When we opened at that end of Queen St there was nothing else around for almost a block in every direction but within the next 10 years there were seven cafes,” he said.
“When we started we had black coffee, a short black, a cappuccino and latte all with full cream milk. Now we have so many more alternatives, not to mention at least seven different types of milk including macadamia, soy, rice, lactose free.
“Back then the Coffee Club opened around the same time and when we started roasting (in 1996) there was probably only Aromas doing the same thing.”
Fast forward 30 years the family-owned business company has since grown to become one of Australia’s leading independently owned and operated coffee roasters with 15 stores in South East Queensland.
In addition they supply their special blends of coffee to more 1500 cafes and restaurants around Australia and have a thriving online business which increased by 90 per cent in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Merlos last year ramped up their exposure to the drive-through trend, purchasing the Toowoomba Pump franchise with three locations.
“Drive-through is a massive trend at the moment, whether people are getting lazy, or it’s harder to find a park, or people’s time is more compromised, no matter which way you cut it drive-through is definitely the way to go at the moment,” Merlo said.
While not Covid-19 proof Merlo said they negotiated the pandemic because of its strong takeaway coffee business.
But it could have been a close-run thing if the company had stuck to an earlier strategy.
“Obviously our university stores were compromised because there were no students, our airport stores were challenging because there were no flights and our CBD stores were not too good either because no one was in the city,” he said.
“Actually my initial strategy was to go to the CBD, university and airport so it’s a good thing we grew past that because otherwise we would have been dead.
“Fortunately we have great stores in Paddington, Springfield, Coorparoo and Southport on the Gold Coast and they were even busier during Covid so it all balanced out.”
The company currently has more than 400 staff and numbers are growing while they are seeking to find and train about 500 baristas for their wholesale customers who are struggling to find staff.
Merlo said that if you “sit back in business you’re going backwards”.
“It’s very competitive out there and you have to be aggressive,” he said.
“We like to pride ourselves in terms of the quality of coffee and we are always developing new blends including now an anniversary blend.”
SKROO CELEBRATES 40TH
Graham ‘Skroo’ Turner will be popping the champagne next month as Flight Centre celebrates its 40th birthday.
A gala party at Sydney’s swish Restaurant Hubert will be held to celebrate the event with Skroo expected to provide insights into the future of travel over the next 40 years.
It’s been a tough couple of years for Flight Centre but Skroo is upbeat as we come out of the pandemic and people look to get back on the road or in the air.
Flight Centre is now a global brand but traces its roots back to 1973 when Skroo and two mates bought a couple of double-decker buses in England and began a holiday travel company Top Deck Travel.
In 1981, Skroo returned to Australia and established the Flight Centre travel business. The first outlet opened in Sydney the following year.
It was an opportune moment as the airline ticketing industry had recently been deregulated, allowing the sale of discounted tickets for the first time. The rest as they say is history.
HAIR RAISING
Award-winning hairdresser Craig Smith is literally getting on his bike.
The owner of nationally acclaimed hair salon Fruition is usually spotted around town on his trusty Harley Davidson. But this week he is swapping his leathers for lycra for an epic 1,311km bicycle trek from Brisbane to Longreach to raise much-needed funds for the Royal Flying Doctors. It is a miraculous comeback for Smith who last year had a bad fall from a bicycle and broke both his hands.
Smith’s salon has won a mantelpiece full of awards over the years and is in high demand internationally. One of his team members is the current Australian Hairdresser of the Year.
Smith has appeared at the world’s biggest hair shows and speaks at international forums on fashion trends and developments.
CENTENARY CELEBRATION
Veteran Brisbane accountant Steve Healey boasts he is working for a 100-year-old startup. In fact, the newly appointed managing partner of RSM Australia’s Brisbane office, which opened in 2013, will tonight celebrate the centenary of the national firm in a soiree attended by Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner and other dignitaries.
Healey says it has been a busy couple of years for RSM in Brisbane, which is the national firm’s fastest-growing team and has doubled the number of staff to more than 80. Healey plans to boost staff even more in the years ahead as it expands its tax, insolvency and risk business.
Founded in Perth in 1922 as the National Service Company, RSM has grown from a humble husband and wife partnership operating without staff and selling a bookkeeping and recording system to a national accounting firm with more than 1500 staff embracing all areas of business advice. The firm is also part of the RSM global network which is the world’s sixth largest audit, tax and consulting network found in 123 countries. RSM’s Brisbane office was established in July 2013 following a merger with MHM Accountants.
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