When Lauren Henry, the owner and founder of Common Circus on Brooks Parade in Belmont, decided she needed to get out the of the business to focus on her flagship gift shop cafe in Hamilton, she knew who to call.
The call went to the folks who run Glee Coffee Roasters, who had supplied her from day one of her 10-year run in Belmont. And they said, yes, they would take on the cafe.
"I feel like what she's created is so special, why wouldn't you want to be part of it?" said Beth Gleeson, Glee's marketing manager and a Lake Macquarie local.
"It's become an institution for Belmont, for Lake Macquarie," Gleeson said. "It's beyond Belmont. It's really special. I can't imagine Belmont without it."
Glee is run by brothers Ben and Chris Gleeson, and their respective spouses, Gem and Beth. The brothers founded Glee in 2009 on the Central Coast, operating a 5kg roaster from an industrial estate in Tuggerah. They now roast 1.5 tonnes a week from their North Wyong roastery and service nearly 40 retail clients in the Central Coast, Newcastle, Maitland and the Hunter Valley.
Ben and Beth live in Tingira Heights, and have four children.
Glee Coffee expanded into operating cafes, including one on Maitland Road in Mayfield (Field), but pulled back to focus on coffee. They closed the Mayfield cafe during the pandemic.
The plan is to keep the Brooks Parade cafe operating much like it did under the Common Circus banner. The curated homewares that were Lauren Henry's trademark will no longer be there, but the light menu remains in place, with toasties and pastries.
"We are all about coffee," Gleeson said. "Coffee gear, home barista tools, hopefully barista training down the tracks. We'd love to train some young people, hopefully night classes down the track. We'll see what happens."
There is still a small range of gifts, and they will maintain the general store items like eggs and fresh sourdough bread.
There will be a wide range of Glee coffee for home use and a large range of home coffee equipment.
"You could come in here, and have your coffee, but we could skill you up so you have good coffee at home," Gleeson said.
Eight members of the Common Circus team have become part of the team at Good One. Gleeson welcomes the consistency, as Glee and Common Circus share similar service values.
"One of our values is that we could be 'day-makers' for people, we could make people's day," Gleeson said. "Even a beautiful coffee experience and caring about them, and making it a beautiful interaction, and one of Lauren's things was, 'we wake up for happy days'. We were like, 'wow, we're pretty connected in the vision even though we do things differently'.
"The core message is really similar, which is cool."
The cafe will continue to serve The Goods blend of Glee Coffee, but their slightly darker roast, The Verve, will be available for home coffee users along with the rest of their range.
The batch brew at the cafe will change every day or two.
