Former digger Thomas Cribb bought The Little Spoon Co cafe at the Hyperdome in Loganholme this past June.
He hadn’t owned a cafe or run a hospitality business before, but wanted to build his life around health, the community and service – the latter of which he knows well.
The Little Spoon Co ticks all three of those boxes, Mr Cribb said.
Since June, Mr Cribb said he has hired new staff and managers, changed the menu items, food preparation protocol and improved the cafe’s service.
“We’ve basically changed everything except the cafe’s logo,” Mr Cribb said.
“At the moment, the cafe has more of a seniors crowd so we’re trying to keep up with those valued customers and also mix in a new younger crowd as well, so we’ve added items like matcha to the menu.”
Eight years ago, Mr Cribb signed up to the Australian Army, of which he was a member for seven years.
“The army consumes your whole life and that can be a really good thing, but it’s really hard to adjust to life the outside of the army.”
His time in the army taught Mr Cribb that his passions were helping people and creating things.
“The army teaches you so much, but it doesn’t teach you how to use those skills on the outside and I just decided that I needed to find out how I could translate my skills to outside world.”
Mr Cribb also works as a personal trainer online and in person at a number of gyms located in Brisbane City.
“I work as a personal trainer for the majority of the mornings, and then I go into the cafe and make sure everything’s running smoothly,” Mr Cribb said.
“There’s a lot of business admin that goes on throughout the day and then I do a lot of going out to the community and seeing how I can and what I can do to engage with more people.”
