Annah gets closer to the Australian outback

It’s always great to get to a warmer climate and my trip to Brisbane was no exception. Great also to catch up with the Manager and store team of the two stores that we have there and do some exploring into our next location, a possible site in Toowoomba.

Day one saw us in Noosa and what was to be my virgin visit to our store in the junction. My mission was to introduce a new label ‘Tav’ from the Cook Islands that I hope will be a better fit for the resort customers in this area.

Day two, we headed to Toowoomba, approximately a two hour drive from the city even though it’s only 100 kilometres away.

We arrived and considered the possibility of the old Fletcher Jones site in the heart of a very sorry city... the surrounding mall developments have certainly sucked the life out of the CBD.

With 30 minutes to spare before the agent turned up, we visited the Grand Central mall. The usual suspects filled the retail spaces but the big surprise was that 50 percent of the stores weren't open, being a Sunday.

This is generally unheard of in mall environments where the rules of the mall usually ensure that it’s all or nothing as to who's trading and when. Perhaps the challenge of paying double time, which can be as high as $50 an hour on a Sunday, has also got to the larger generic players as well?

I do know that the shift in the law in Australia as to the treatment of outworkers (women sewing at home) is that it now needs the same treatment as an employee from a wages perspective. This has certainly got the Fiji manufacturing operations excited at the chance to re-kickstart their flagging industry with increased engagement from the Australian fashion industry.

I am undecided as yet on the suitability of Toowoomba; apparently it gets a lot colder than Brisbane in the winter, (so perhaps a better fit climatically) and challenged by the exit of retail from the CBD, although visits to the smaller malls that have sprung up would see them as nothing more than service centres. We took time out to reflect and grab a coffee at a central cafe serving Supreme coffee (a NZ brand). It wasn’t great, and I’m not sure that Supreme would be happy with this representation of their brand.

The Toowoomba city has a service radius population of 140 kilometres. Mining development has also brought some of the money into the area. The city felt very similar to Rotorua; big streets and the multi street destinations with no real centre to speak of.

I encouraged Heather, a Facebook friend from this city, to have a coffee with me. She and her friend Carolyn where delightful and I barraged them with questions on demographics, events and retail. I also encouraged them to look at opportunities for me to speak in the area.

Homework well and truly done, we headed back to Brisbane under a black sky and threatening thunderstorms, destination James Street in Fortitude Valley, an area we looked at originally before we settled on Paddington. A quick walk and we well and truly made our minds up that this was not the space for us. So we settled in for a big Aussie shiraz and some food at what has always been one of our favourite cafes, Cru on the strip.

Ouch, the food was terrible! I even sent mine back and I haven't done that for a while. The wine was average and limited, so we were disappointed as we will now need another favourite eating space. But then as with most things, nothing stays the same.

However, the meal we had on Friday, the day of our arrival, down on the waterfront at Organic Char had been excellent. Service was slow, but when the food came it was excellent even though the waiter was on his last night and happy to be so!

The storm raged through the night making any meal efforts too far from the hotel difficult and pointless, so we settled in for drink in the bar of our excellent hotel, The Emporium on Ann St, and considered the possibility of the Toowoomba site - I’m giving it 6 out of 10 at this stage ….