The farmers, fishers, bakers, brewers, and distillers quietly shaping what’s on your plate.
Let’s let you in on something locals already know: Caloundra’s food scene didn’t level up by accident.
Yes, we’ve got talented chefs. Yes, we’ve got cracking waterfront views and dining rooms that feel like a holiday even if you live five minutes up the road. But the real magic starts well before the plate hits your table.
It starts in industrial estates in Caloundra West where world-class spirits are distilled. It starts in a warehouse tin shed in Moffat Beach where coffee is roasted in 10kg batches. It starts before dawn on the Mooloolaba fleet and in cheesemaking rooms up in the Blackall Range.
If you’ve ever wondered why your breakfast tastes fresher here, or why that seafood linguine seems to carry a bit more swagger, this one’s for you. Here are the makers doing the quiet work.
The Distiller: Beachtree Distilling Co
Of all the makers in Caloundra, Beachtree Distilling Co is the one the international craft-spirits world knows best.
Based at 14 Industrial Avenue in Caloundra West, Beachtree is Australia’s only certified First Nations distillery, co-founded in 2021 by Steve Grace (Kamilaroi) and Kirra Daley. The awards are genuinely extraordinary: World’s Best Craft Producer in both 2024 and 2025, plus World’s Best Sustainable Distillery in 2025. These aren’t hinterland-craft-scene awards. These are global awards, sitting on the shelves of a distillery that most Caloundra locals drive past without a second glance.
The signature Koala Gin, Quokka and Native Skippy Gin are built around native Australian botanicals, and the “You Sip, We Plant” initiative has put over 25,000 trees in the ground. The cellar door is open Wednesday to Saturday for tastings, and you’ll see Beachtree spirits on cocktail lists across Caloundra, from Acqua to Bianco to the Thirsty Beaver.
When you order a gin and tonic at dinner here, there’s a genuine chance it’s a locally distilled one, made by a First Nations-led producer, with every sip funding reforestation. That’s the kind of supply chain most Australian cities can’t offer.
The Brewers: Moffat Beach Brewing and Brouhaha Baringa
Caloundra now has two serious breweries operating entirely within its postcode, and their beers pour across taps all over the Sunshine Coast.
Moffat Beach Brewing Co began in 2012 when Matt and Sharynne Wilson started brewing out of a small space 50 metres from the Moffat sand. The Beachside venue at 12 Seaview Terrace is still there, with 8 rotating taps and live music between the tanks. In 2020 they opened the Production House at 51 Caloundra Road, a four-vessel Tiantai 20hL brewery with 20 rotating taps and low-and-slow BBQ smoked on-site. The Wilsons’ trophy cabinet includes Champion Session Beer at the 2023 Royal Queensland Beer Awards for Moff’s Summer Ale, and the brewery regularly gets called “Australia’s Most Awarded Brewery”. Key beers include Moff’s Summer Ale, Iggy Hop, Passenger, Deadbeat Boyfriend, Cereal Killer and Shadow of The Moon.
Brouhaha Brewery Baringa at 1 Edison Crescent opened in 2016 under founder Julian, with Matt Jancauskas (2017 Beeries Best Brewer, previously head brewer at Beavertown in London) running the brewing programme. The Strawberry Rhubarb Sour is the signature, and the Raspberry Saison, IPA and Maleny Lager are regulars on taps across the region.
When you see a local beer on tap in Caloundra, there’s a genuine chance it was brewed within 10 minutes of the bar you’re drinking at.
The Coffee Roaster: Groundskeeper Willie
Most of Caloundra’s specialty cafés brew beans roasted elsewhere: The Pastry Lab pours First Batch from Noosa, Izba Espresso pours Fonzie Abbott, The Frog’s Kitchen pours organic Merlo. Those are all excellent regional partnerships. But Caloundra also has its own specialty roaster.
Groundskeeper Willie Coffee Roasters is a family-owned specialty coffee roastery based in Moffat Beach, founded by Will and Attie. They source green beans directly, roast in small batches on-site, and package every bag locally. The signature house blend is Houndstooth, an espresso designed to cut through milk while remaining full and decadent as a black coffee, with dark chocolate notes reminiscent of chocolate chip cookies. If you want to taste Caloundra-roasted coffee specifically, this is the supply chain to look for.
Coffee Cat On Kings Beach also roasts their own in-house blend called Catnip Brew, making them both a café and a genuine local coffee producer. Beans available to buy at the café.
The Pastry Chefs: Chris at The Pastry Lab and Dhanushka at 22 Cribb St
A town’s food scene lives and dies on its pastry programme, and Caloundra has two serious artisans elevating the morning.
Chris and Emily founded The Pastry Lab at 2/80 Lower Gay Terrace in 2020. Chris started his apprenticeship at 16, spent 16 years training under Australian, French and American pastry chefs, and his Modern French Fusion style has drawn comparisons to Parisian pâtisseries from over 400 reviewers on Restaurant Guru (4.8 rating). Signature work includes the almond croissant, the lemon meringue croissant (a combination that shouldn’t work but genuinely does), the salted caramel cruffin, the signature Vanilla Slice, and a ham and cheese croissant with bechamel that gets called “complete and utter perfection.” They also offer proper High Tea. Emily is a qualified medical scientist, which is where the name came from.
Dhanushka Manjula is the head pastry chef behind 22 Cribb St, building the original Landsborough location into a cult following before opening the Caloundra branch at 90 Bulcock Street. The pastry programme here rotates seasonally and brings queues on weekends.
The MasterChef Gelato Maker: Kate Bracks at Fifty Acres
Few Australian food scenes can claim a MasterChef Australia winner in residence, but Caloundra can.
Kate Bracks won MasterChef Australia Season 3 in 2011, and after years building her food writing and recipe development career, she and her family moved to the Sunshine Coast around 2023. In late 2024 she opened Fifty Acres Gelato at Bulcock Beach, named after the family’s 50-acre hobby farm near Orange, NSW.
The gelato here isn’t imported batches. It’s made on-site with a philosophy that rewards proper ingredients: real fruit sourced at local markets, Maleny milk in the signature strawberry milk gelato, and seasonal flavours that shift with what’s fresh. Kate’s favourite is the tiramisu, and the “Are you up for a challenge?” category on the menu invites the more adventurous. Fifty metres from the sand, and a genuine step up from what most people expect from a beachside gelato counter.
The Donut Maker: Galactic Donuts
Galactic Donuts at 24 Bowman Road, Caloundra, is part of a three-store Queensland-born operation (also in Townsville and Rockhampton), hand-crafting over 35 yeast-raised donut flavours fresh daily. The team developed a unique yeast-raised recipe with decades of combined experience in Australia’s bakery scene, producing a soft, pillowy texture that’s noticeably different from standard bakery donuts. Cream donuts use real fresh cream. Tuesday is Cheap Tuesday ($2.90 each, 10 for the price commitment). Their community programme (Chew for Charity for the Starlight Children’s Foundation) anchors them in the local fabric rather than just parachuting in as a chain.
The Chef-Makers: Bianco’s Handmade Pasta and The Happy Turtle’s Cabinet
Some makers aren’t standalone producers but chefs whose kitchens double as production spaces.
Ibrahim Haddad at Bianco (5 Tay Avenue) produces handmade pasta and Pizza Contemporanea dough (the lighter, higher-hydration, long-fermented style) in-house every day. The pasta you eat at Bianco was shaped that morning.
Chloe Donaldson at The Happy Turtle Cafe makes cabinet treats fresh at the Happy Valley shipping container, with a properly eco-conscious operation: bring your own cup for a Sea Life Trust donation, all cups recycled on-site, remaining produce goes to the homeless. Chloe took over from Rob Muston’s beloved 15-year Happy Valley Coffee Van and added her own imprint as a naturopathy student.
The Supply Chains That Feed the Kitchens
Not every maker is based in Caloundra. The town’s food culture also depends on two major supply chains worth understanding.
The Mooloolaba seafood supply. Queensland prawns, reef fish, tuna, Moreton Bay bugs, coral trout, Spanish mackerel and snapper move from the Mooloolaba fishing fleet and fish market to Caloundra restaurants with remarkably short turnaround. You’ll see this supply directly on menus at Acqua, Three Restaurant, Caloundra Power Boat Club, Dicky Beach SLSC and De Lish Fish @ Kings. When the weather keeps boats in harbour, specials pivot. That flexibility keeps the seafood honest.
The Blackall Range hinterland supply. Twenty minutes west of Caloundra, the Maleny and Montville hinterland produces the dairy, cheese, fruit and vegetables that feed most of the region’s kitchens. Maleny Dairies milk and cream appear on Caloundra coffee menus and in desserts. Maleny-produced cheese turns up on grazing boards. Sunshine Coast macadamias, honey, avocados, pineapples, ginger, leafy greens, zucchini flowers, passionfruit and citrus flow through regional distributors to Caloundra kitchens.
These aren’t Caloundra makers in the postcode sense, but they’re part of the ecosystem that lets Caloundra kitchens operate the way they do. Chefs aren’t dealing with multi-day freight timelines. They’re texting growers directly. They’re adjusting menus based on what’s actually thriving that week.
It’s not farm-to-table as a buzzword. It’s farm-to-table because the farm is genuinely over the hill.
Why It Tastes Better Here
When you dine in Caloundra, you’re not just supporting a single restaurant. You’re supporting a chain of local businesses: distillers, brewers, roasters, bakers, pastry chefs, gelato makers, seafood suppliers, dairy farmers, and market gardeners, most of whom live within an hour of where you’re sitting.
It’s a regional ecosystem working as it should.
When chefs know their producers personally, something shifts. There’s accountability. There’s pride. There’s collaboration. A brewer might develop a beer to pair with a specific restaurant’s menu. A pastry chef might save a batch of croissants for the café next door. A distiller might produce a small-batch seasonal gin for a specific bar. A gelato maker might time her mango flavour to match the farm’s peak week.
Being slightly removed from the bigger-city dining pressure cooker has allowed these relationships to grow organically. It’s less transactional and more communal. And that spirit shows up in the food.
Plan Your Producer-Led Food Trail
If this has sparked a bit of curiosity, good. That’s the point.
Use our interactive trip planner to map out venues championing local produce. A genuinely good producer-focused Caloundra day might look like this: coffee at Coffee Cat (who roast their own), pastry at The Pastry Lab (whose chef has 16 years under French masters), lunch at Acqua (sourcing Mooloolaba seafood), afternoon gelato at Fifty Acres (MasterChef-made with Maleny milk), a cellar-door tasting at Beachtree (World’s Best Craft Producer), dinner at Bianco (handmade pasta), and a nightcap of a Moffat Beach Brewing beer (Champion Session Beer 2023).
Six or seven producers. All within 15 minutes of each other. Every dish, every pour, every scoop is anchored in someone local who cares about what they’re making.
Once you meet the makers, even if it’s just through the menu, you’ll start tasting Caloundra differently.
And trust us, it’s a pretty delicious way to get to know the place.
Start planning your Caloundra food trail now – explore the Taste of Caloundra dining directory and interactive map to discover what’s on your next plate. Have a favourite Caloundra dining spot we should know about? Get in touch, we’re always hungry for recommendations!