Highfields business Lily’s Artisan buys Crows Nest Bakery north of Toowoomba as small town continues property boom

It’s one of the Toowoomba region’s fastest-growing towns, with bustling local shops and fresh faces for residents. Now a booming artisanal business is getting ready to call it home.

Bruce and Heidi Ryman are so confident in Crows Nest’s economic trajectory, they’re moving their booming artisanal food business to one of the Toowoomba region’s best small towns.

The co-owners of Lily’s Artisan, which creates jams, spreads, sauces, pasta and preserves using surplus local produce, have revealed their purchase of the old Crows Nest Bakery site on the New England Highway.

The building will become a “seasonal kitchen” and bustling tourist attraction, employing more than a dozen workers including local school-aged trainees and apprentices.

The couple, who have decades of experience in the hospitality sector, will use the existing kitchen space to prepare produce initially before creating a cafe in the garden at the rear in a subsequent stage.

Lily's Artisan co-owners Bruce and Heidi Ryman have bought the old Crows Nest Bakery building and are converting it into a permanent base for the couple's growing homemade jam, relish and sauce business.

Not dissimilar from the approach taken by other Crows Nest businesses like Myrtille, Lily’s Artisan only creates short runs of its products based on what’s available.

Mr Ryman said he was excited by the High Country area’s local produce, which he said would form the basis of the business’ products.

“My estimate is that between all the farmers and households from Hampton to Cooyar, there are probably 1500-2000 fruit trees and probably 20-30 tonnes of fruit going to waste on the ground,” he said.

“That becomes the opportunity of putting it in jars, giving it totally different flavour combinations, doing things that people don’t see often.”

Once fully-realised, the site’s garden will grow a range of herbs and produce to aid the range of products.

Concept art for the new Lily's Artisan shopfront on the New England Highway in Crows Nest, which used to host the town's bakery before it closed down.

“It will also be an edible garden, what we put in will be food-producing to aid our operation, like rosemary, thyme and other herbs,” Mrs Ryman said.

Their emergence comes during a boom period for the northern Toowoomba region town, which has recorded extraordinary property sales growth over the past 12 months.

The renovation of the heritage-listed Nolan’s Block, which now features a number of boutique shops, has re-enforced the unique offering of businesses in the small town.

The growth has been so immense, the Toowoomba Regional Council is investigating more off-street parking.

Nolan's Block at Crows Nest. Thursday, June 9, 2022. Picture: Nev Madsen.

Mr Ryman said a trip to Crows Nest during Covid-19 made the pair realise the community’s potential.

“In 2020 Crows Nest Progress Association had a meeting at the Curly Carrot (at the tourism park),” he said.

“We saw how things were being run up here and what the area was like — the fact that tourism was growing up here, we thought this is where Lily’s Artisan will continue to take off.”

Mrs Ryman said she felt the business’ ethos matched the retail and hospitality offerings in Crows Nest.

Lily's owner Bruce Ryman making fresh pasta. Picture: Kevin Farmer

“The position of the building is perfect, but we also saw what we did was complementary of what everyone else was doing,” she said.

“It’s another things to bring people to Crows Nest as well as the community already here.

“We fit in and dovetail with what’s already here.”

It marks a stunning rise for the small business, which the Rymans started out of the kitchen during the pandemic at their main operation the Highfields Motel.

Bruce Ryman from Lily's.

“We’d always made our own pasta sauces, which were unique and (during Covid-19) we started jarring them up, making our own pasta and taking them down to the farmers’ markets,” Mr Ryman said.

“We started doing relish (from donated produce) and then we got into jams (and now) we’ve just outgrown the motel kitchen.

“Ideally in two to three years time, I’d love to have it operating on the weekends so we can do training courses for our jams and pastas and sauces.”

Geoff Trost, principal Ray White Rural Crows Nest. Thursday, June 9, 2022. Picture: Nev Madsen.

Ray White Rural Crows Nest principal Geoff Trost said demand for housing had not slowed down – in fact, it had only increased since June last year.

“The residential and lifestyle farming market, properties from 10 to 100 acres, they can’t get enough of them right now,” he said.

“The rural lifestyle market has increased by 100 per cent in just a couple of years.”

Crows Nest has recorded 66 home, farm and land property sales over the past 12 months, at a median price of just under $400,000.

This includes a three-bedroom home on Emu St that was bought for $190,000 in 2019, only to be sold again in March with some renovations for $365,000.

“We were so desperate for houses, (the owner) was happy to sell as is and the buyers preferred it that way so that they could put their own stamp on it,” Mr Trost said.

Need for new bakery in Crows Nest

The loss of the once-popular Crows Nest Bakery has opened up a major opportunity in the small town — but good luck finding a spot.

With the previous site selling to Lily’s Artisan owners Bruce and Heidi Ryman late last year, the community north of Toowoomba is short a standard bakery to service residents.

While the My Little Blueberry cafe at the Nolan’s Block offers some products, operators have noted the original bakery at its peak was selling hundreds of pies every day.

Ray White Rural Crows Nest principal Geoff Trost said he had already been approached by two bakers looking to set up shop.

“When (the sale) happened, I had two bakers falling over themselves, but there’s just very little to fit out,” he said.

“I don’t know if we’ve got something vacant in the centre of town.”

Mr Trost said the most likely options would be for another business to move on, or a prospective bakery to build from scratch.

“For a town of this size, we don’t have a bakery and we have been spoiled with (the quality of) our bakers in previous years.”