Mahalia and Paul Layzell have been on a caffeine-inspired journey for almost three decades.
As a kid growing up in first Naracoorte and then Robe on South Australia’s Limestone Coast, Paul Layzell says he couldn’t wait to “get outta there”. So he worked in hospitality and, in the 1980s, spent years travelling twice around the world from Europe and the UK to Nepal and the US.
By the early ’90s, he was back home in Robe visiting his mum (who, at 96, still lives in the beach shack the family built in 1967) when his friend, chef Steve Cumper, introduced him to his sister, Mahalia. “Mahalia had worked in restaurants in Melbourne so we had a lot in common and we became friends,” Paul says. “She’s a trained sweets chef, I’m more of a short-order cook, but we enjoyed working together and romance developed.”
Paul moved to Melbourne in the mid-’90s, but as a couple they continued to visit Paul’s family in Robe. “It’s an idyllic little bubble that’s been a holiday destination for 150 years,” he says. “Beautiful white sandy beaches and turquoise water that looks like the Greek Islands until you go for a swim and realise the water comes straight off the Antarctic.”
It was during one of those visits when the Layzells identified a gap in Robe’s hospitality offerings. “There was nowhere serving decent coffee or breakfast,” Paul says. “So, in 1996, we moved to Robe and opened the Wild Mulberry Cafe, introducing both decent espresso and smashed avocado to town.” The couple bought what they describe as “a pretty ordinary suburban brick home” the following year. “That’s all we could afford and it served us well as a place to raise our family,” Paul explains. Edward was born in 2002 and Byron arrived in 2007.
By 1999, Mahalia had taken her pastry-trained “chemistry brain” pursuit of the best cup of coffee to the next level and began roasting beans in a shed in their backyard. “We outgrew that pretty quickly,” Paul says. “We moved to a building in Robe’s industrial area and gradually the business evolved into a much larger operation. By 2002, we sold the cafe to concentrate on Mahalia Coffee and allow a bit more family time, but the coffee business really took off .”
In 2007, in the middle of the GFC (global financial crisis), a much bigger building came on the market and the Layzells jumped at the chance. “It was just an empty factory full of crayfish vats,” Paul says. “But the price was right and a lot of renovations later, we have turned it into a Victorian-era coffee emporium.” Paul and Mahalia now roast coffee in one section, have developed a gift store/cafe in another, serving gourmet toasties, cakes, scones and soups and packets of their coffee. “We were given an unexpected gift when the council built a children’s playground on our back boundary,” Paul says. “So we were able to put in a gate and glass windows so families can keep an eye on their children while they play and the grown ups have coffee on the deck”
Mahalia Coffee has grown beyond their wildest imaginings and even the challenges of the pandemic delivered a silver lining when they pivoted to online sales. Customers grabbed at the chance to receive a taste of the holidays they couldn’t take by ordering mail-order roasted coffee free of freight charges.
“Mahalia is really picky about how she roasts and people have grown to appreciate that,” Paul says. “It’s basically cooking a seed to caramelise the sugars. Cook it too fast and it tastes sour, cook it too slow and it’s stewy.” The range now includes five blends ranging from high-caffeine through to mild, fruity and sweet, a blend with hints of berries and toasted almonds, café crema with chocolate caramel accents to European dark roast. As well, they offer single-origin packs from all the world’s leading producers — Ethiopia, Kenya, East Timor and Sumatra. It never ceases to amaze them how far their reputation has spread and they now serve customers from all over the world and employ about 14 staff during the summer high season.
In an unexpected twist of events, Edward and his partner, George Kheav, have ended up helping out in the business. “They have a unit in Adelaide and divide their time between Robe and the city,” Paul explains. “Edward studied film and television so he’s very good at socials, while George is everywhere, helping on the floor, with the roasting, wherever he’s needed. It’s great to have them involved as they bring fresh perspective to what we do.” Byron is still at high school in Mount Gambier and lives in a house the family owns at Millicent, about midway between the two towns. “We divide our time between Robe and Millicent and somehow we make it all work,” Paul says.
Two years ago, the Layzells embarked on a major restoration of the Robe house and today the interiors bear no resemblance to its humble brick ’80s exterior. Paul says he enjoys the renovation process and has even accepted commissions to help others with their interiors. “Customers see what we’ve done at Mahalia Coffee and ask me for help,” he says. “I needed a creative outlet and there wasn’t enough room for a painting studio, so I turned to interior design.”
In his “spare” time, Paul is studying a course at the Interior Design Institute. “I’ve been working on it for a few years and I’ve only got one module to go,” he says. Meanwhile, he’s exercising his creative urges by remodelling the Millicent house. “It will have a nod to the ’70s and ’80s with a bit of a [American TV Western] Bonanza feel,” he says. “I don’t want to get in a rut, so its brief is completely different to the Robe house, which was more classical and whimsical.”
As he reflects on almost 30 years in Robe, Paul says “coffee is the goose that’s enabled us to live a pretty good life in the country”. “It’s a great place to bring up children,” he adds. “We could have sent the boys to boarding school, but that didn’t feel right. It’s like asking someone else to bring up your kids and we didn’t want that. It’s interesting that Mahalia and I were once so city-oriented and now we’re happy to be country bumpkins. The more you travel, the more you realise you live in paradise. We now know that the place I couldn’t wait to get away from offers a very good lifestyle, with a great food and wine scene and cosmopolitan influences. We know we’re lucky to have ended up here.
