Noel Whittaker stumbles upon Coffee Club in the Middle East

BRISBANE personal finance whiz Noel Whittaker says he was astonished to find a Coffee Club outlet while visiting the famous Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi.

Noel Whittaker found a Coffee Club in Abu Dhabi.Picture: AAP/John Gass

COFFEE SPOT

IT’S always nice to spot something that reminds you of home when you are overseas. Brissie personal finance whiz Noel Whittaker says he was astonished to find a Coffee Club outlet while visiting the famous Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi on the weekend.

Whittaker (illustrated) tells your diarist he stopped over in Abu Dhabi on his way home from Paris to visit the mosque, which holds 40,000 worshippers has 82 domes, more than 1000 columns and 24 karat gold gilded chandeliers.

Illustration of Noel Whittaker by Brett Lethbridge

“I was amazed to find a Coffee Club on site – there were no other eating facilities whatsoever,” Whittaker says. “It was the logo that attracted me and it was confirmed it is the same group that we have (in Brisbane). What a coup and the coffee was good too.”

Coffee Club, which started in Brisbane in the late 1980s, now has more than 400 stores in nine countries.

PARIS SHOW

WHITTAKER, who serves as an adjunct professor at QUT, says he was in Paris as part of a small group from the university attending the launch of an exhibition by Brisbane-born artist William Robinson at the Australian embassy.

“It was a most successful event and even the American ambassador turned up,” Whittaker says. The State Government provided funding to QUT to support the international tour of 42 Robinson works, including paintings, sketches and lithographs. The exhibition has already been shown in Washington DC.

POWER MOVES

CLOSER to home and we hear Aromas Noosa is the place to be if you want to spot the movers and shakers of the east coast business community.

Former Brisbane boy Doug Tynan, who now runs Sydney investment firm VGI Partners, tells us he spent a week in Noosa over Christmas/New Year and the coffee shop in Hastings St is the place to be seen.

“It attracts a lot of the Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney bizzoids who all seem to know each other and network there over a coffee every morning – it is fun to watch,” Tynan says.

Regulars include Flight Centre boss Graham ‘Skroo’ Turner, Sir Llew Edwards, real estate magnate Brian White, private equity guru Simon Moore, James Bell QC, menswear retailer Mitch Ogilvie and ex-BDO partner Bruce Hatcher. We hear Doug’s dad David Tynan, chairman of Brisbane financial firm Tynans, likes to pop in for breakfast on occasions. Also spotted in recent times have been sport legends Greg Norman and Pat Rafter.

STARS AND STRIPES

AMERICAN razzamatazz of the football variety was on full display in Brisbane on Monday, with packed bars across the city glued to the Super Bowl coverage.

The American Chamber of Commerce packed out the Pav Bar at Stamford Plaza, with members and guests chowing down on mini hamburgers, chocolate-covered strawberry footballs, chicken nuggets and popcorn washed down with lashings of Coors beer.

AmCham Brisbane general manager Alicia Doherty says it was the first official Super Bowl event put on by the local chamber, which has attracted a score of new members since opening an office at 1 Eagle St last January.

“We call it 1 Bald Eagle St,” quips Doherty, a former US Army Aviation Corps mechanical specialist who followed her Australian Army husband to Oz more than 20 years ago.

Doherty worked at Austrade, Events NSW, and the Queensland Department of Premier and Cabinet before taking up the AmCham role.

Doherty says it’s going to be a packed year for AmCham with its first business lunch of the year focusing appropriately on sport and its economic impact. “Super Bowl proves sport is big business,” Doherty says, adding that the upcoming Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast proves that Queensland is capable of hosting major sporting events.