Inside Cafe Launceston for sale as owners reveal new Cimitiere St cafe plans
A top Tasmanian cafe that has operated for 11 years has been listed for sale. But not all hope is lost – with its current owners revealing their plans to open a new cafe within a new $27m office development.
Food and Wine
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A top Tasmanian cafe that has operated for 11 years has been listed for sale, with its current owners revealing they are set to open a new cafe within a new $27m office development.
Aaron Lowe, who has owned Launceston’s Inside Cafe for the past three years, alongside business partner Phil Crate, revealed his plans to sell the current cafe in order to open a new cafe within the seven-storey St.Lukes Health development on Cimitiere St.
“We just don’t think we can handle two. It will be a bit of a stretch, so we’ll just let someone else take it over,” Mr Lowe said.
Mr Lowe said negotiations with St.Lukes have been ongoing for approximately three months. A lease is yet to be signed, although a heads of agreement has.
“It’s with all the lawyers,” Mr Lowe said.
The cafe owner said he had been bowled over by the St.Lukes development, which features the extensive use of cross-laminated timber.
“We just found a great location, a new building that’s good for the environment. We love plant-life and nature,” he said.
The new cafe will be joined on the ground floor of the development by a St.Lukes dental practice, one of at least four which will be rolled out across the state, and a health hub modelled on the recently completed $2m Hobart hub, offering things like weekly meditation and yoga, plus talks and workshops.
Mr Lowe said the new cafe would hew to a simpler menu – Inside Cafe currently offers items like Korean fried chicken and glazed pulled pork bao buns, green bowls and ramen.
“It’s going to be a different kind of business model, not so much restaurant food, more of a traditional cafe with more takeaway stuff, a bigger display cabinet for pastries, cakes, takeaway granola bowls. It will have a bit more of a cafe feel to it,” Mr Lowe said.
Mr Lowe said the sale was for the “whole kit and caboodle,” including plant and equipment and intellectual property, with the opportunity to retain staff (but not the coffee machine, which is on lease).
Inside Cafe and adjoining business Inside Home and Gifts were originally opened in 2012 by Birchall’s, the oldest bookshop in Australia at the time, which closed in 2017.
The businesses now operate separately, with Inside Home and Gifts currently owned by Jane Luttrell Creese. It was formerly owned by Mandy Gutwein-Burke, wife of ex-Premier Peter Gutwein.
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