'Lack of patronage' forces CBD business to close
A TOOWOOMBA business in prime CBD location has folded after less than six months of trading.
Beans and Leaves on Duggan has closed, citing a lack of customers as the reason.
In a city full of cafes, Toowoomba woman Rose Leighton wanted to create something different.
She opened the Duggan St business in July last year, which was more of a coffee and tea gift store than cafe.
Its concept was to offer an express beverage service inside a gift store.
If customers were peckish, they could pick up a cookie or fresh cupcake. They could also try some tea while buying a home-made tea cosy or tea accessories.
Since Toowoomba had a thriving coffee culture, Ms Leighton wanted to promote tea.
She told The Chronicle in August, sales after the store's opening were disappointing but was hopeful trade would pick up.
"There are other great food places along Duggan St serving absolutely beautiful food. I didn't want to go against, I wanted to be symbiotic with other street traders," she said.
However, Beans and Leaves on Duggan announced its closure on Facebook in November, less than six months since opening.
The post read: "Due to lack of patronage at my little shop I have had to make the tough decision to close my shop front down."
"However, I will still be active at markets on weekends. I will keep you all updated on my whereabouts by Facebook and you can still phone the number on this page for any orders outside of market weekends."
The closure comes after Canadian-style cafe Sugar Maples said last month it was driven out of business by bigger names moving into the Toowoomba CBD.
Sugar Maples Owner Daniel Bloomfield said competition had been rife.
"We find it hard as a small family business to continue to operate with bigger names moving in around the CBD," he said.
"That coupled with the lack of parking has made it difficult for us to continue and we have had to come to the difficult decision to close Sugar Maples' doors."
Sugar Maples will cease trading this Sunday, January 15.
Russell St cafe One Twelve also closed its doors in August last year because of "a lack of customers".
