Toowoomba Zarraffa’s: Drive-through cafe moving to Anzac Avenue, Harristown next to Oporto

The man who brought a popular coffee chain to Toowoomba is moving his original shop to a new location — for a pretty specific reason.

Damian Doyle’s Zarraffa’s drive-through cafe sells more than 7000 coffees and drinks every week; the site opposite Clifford Gardens Shopping Centre is so popular the traffic spills out onto Anzac Avenue.

“We’ve just outgrown (the old site) — because we’re so busy, we’re at capacity with the traffic,” he said.

“We’ve (partially) moved because of the traffic, we can’t grow anymore.”

The 15-year franchisee of the popular coffee chain will relocate his original store to a purpose-built drive-through location further south on the corner of Anzac Avenue and Devine Street in Harristown, next door to Oporto.

Zarraffa's Coffee Toowoomba franchisee Damian Doyle will open his relocated Newtown drive-through shop south along Anzac Avenue, next to Oporto.

Opening on Friday, the new $750,000 shop will employ more than 30 staff, including staff who have been with Mr Doyle for years.

With a much larger drive-through to handle more traffic, Mr Doyle he wanted to serve more than 5000 customers weekly.

“We serve 4600 customers a week and that’s about 7000 drinks a week but we’re hoping to improve that by around 10 to 12 per cent, we want to get to over 5000 customers a week,” he said.

“Right now, if people see the line out to the street, they just drive past.

“We’ve got about 31 people on staff, so a full-time manager and we’ve got about three full-timers and the rest are all casual — we’re probably going to try and grow that a little bit.”

Part of his team will be daughters Taylor Butler and Jordan Koina, with Mr Doyle describing the business as a family affair.

Zarraffa's Coffee Toowoomba franchisee Damian Doyle (pictured with daughters Taylor Butler and Jordan Koina) will open his relocated Newtown drive-through shop south along Anzac Avenue, next to Oporto.

“My girls have both been with me since the start, and that was 15 years ago,” he said.

“They were both still at school at the time.

“My son is 24 now and he was 14 when he first started with us, making coffees and everything.”

More broadly, Mr Doyle said he was proud of the number of Toowoomba kids who go their first start in one of his stores.

“That’s one of the things I’m most proud of with our business is how we’ve had long-term employees who were kids in high school and working with us through university and then going onto bigger things,” he said.

“This was their first taste of work, so I love seeing that progression with young people that they’ve employed and we’ve supported.

“We’ve been happy to support them to get into whatever they’d like.”

Mr Doyle said he’d like to work with schools and training organisations to hire school-based trainees.