Tough times lead to new cafe and gift shop
ONE and a half years ago, Ballandean woman Lee-Ann Simpson opened Le’Bel, a cafe next to Ballandean Hall.
The Simpsons run a tomato farm on Bents Rd that was going through some tough years and Mrs Simpson was looking for a way to earn money outside Simpson Produce.
“We got into trouble with the farm and I started selling second-hand vintage furniture and that just to help out,” she said.
“Then we got offered this place for the cafe.
“We started making relish but you couldn’t marry the two because Le’Bel didn’t stand for anything so we changed the name to The Farm Gate Cafe, probably about four months ago.
“We are concentrating more on local produce and products so everything we sell now is produced locally.”
The Farm Gate Cafe offers seasonal produce as well as locally made products along with breakfast and lunch. Friday night is pizza night.
“I don’t think people realise how much we produce locally here on the Granite Belt,” Mrs Simpson said.
“We have a wide range of products that we do produce.
“Cypress Ridge has a garlic farm and they make all these
by-products and garlic and things like that.
“They are a small, familyowned operation that is not a big commercial operator which sends to the Brisbane markets.”
Mrs Simpson said the Granite Belt was well known for its grapes but, especially in Ballandean, there were many tomato growers.
“We pretty much service Brisbane markets for most of their tomatoes for most of the
summer,” she said.
“It comes out of the Granite Belt here so that’s huge.”
Everyone walking through The Farm Gate Cafe doors gets some education.
“If anybody is interested, we tell them what we do and how we go about it, we tell them the good and the bad,” Mrs Simpson said.
Local produce and homemade products sell well at the Ballandean cafe.
“We have been selling our
relish now for over a year which is really popular,” Mrs Simpson said.
“We sold out this year, so that was good.
“When we have tomatoes, they sell very well because people like hearing that we actually grow them – we’ve already had people ring up asking when we’re going to have tomatoes in.”
This year, the Simpsons are looking at making many more homemade products to keep
up with the demand.
“Ballandean Estate taught us how to make the relish. And we want to make a lot more of that this year,” Mrs Simpson said.
“Suttons has been helping us, teaching us how to make tomato sauce so we’ll do a lot more of that this year as well.”
Mrs Simpson said through The Farm Gate Cafe she wanted to make Granite Belt produce more accessible for residents and visitors.