Located just 100 metres from beautiful Mermaid Beach in the heart of the Gold Coast is Skull and Bones Espresso Boutique. Owner Jesse Garlick has worked in the coffee industry since he was 18, and he still has a passion for making quality coffee.
After many years of embracing Melbourne’s café scene, Jesse was keen for a seachange. He moved to the sunny Gold Coast, but there was one thing lacking. “I felt there was a gap in the local market for good specialty coffee. I knew the residents enjoyed coffee as much as I did, they just needed someone to step up, so I did, and opened Skull and Bones Espresso Boutique in 2012,” he says.
The café is located next to a precinct of art galleries, bars and restaurants, which Jesse says attracts a great mix of tourists and local residents. “The thing that stands out about our venue is our focus – we love what we do and we do it well,” he says.
Jesse has taken the interior design into his own hands and built the café’s furniture, using plywood and steel piping materials, in a style he describes as “simple yet comfortable”. The café serves Toby’s Estate’s Woolloomooloo blend for its house offering on a Kees van der Westen Mirage Triplette. “Our house blend is a different coffee profile to what the Gold Coast is used to, but that’s why we love it. It consists of seven different origins, which creates a great flavour profile with acidity, nuttiness and fruit flavours. It’s a good all rounder blend from lattes to piccolos,” says Jesse.
The Woolloomooloo blend is used for Skull and Bones Espresso Boutique’s bottled cold press coffee. The café also serves Toby’s Estate’s selection of single origin coffees that change weekly. “They have an amazing selection of coffees with favourites including the Brazil Carnival, La Trinadad, and a range of Geishas which have been great on chemex and V60 pour over,” says Jesse.
The café hosts coffee cuppings and chemex tastings each month. “With serving specialty coffee comes the responsibility of education. People want to know about the origins of beans and how they’re produced. Toby’s Estate gives us that education with training,” says Jesse.
A full menu is also on offer with a range of New York-inspired foods including bagels, berry waffles and traditional eggs. “We invite everyone to come take a seat, enjoy our coffee and food, then go for a surf,” says Jesse.