A family-owned distillery that’s blown production and popularity expectations out of the water is taking its expansion plans up a notch to meet demand.
While Paradise Rum has just opened a second venue at Mooloolaba, co-owners Chris and Cathryn Clyne are celebrating another exciting expansion.
The duo opened their first venue at Warana in November 2022, but due to its steady growth and popularity Mr Clyne revealed they were about to triple the venue’s outside area space.
“We’re really happy,” he said.
“But it’s been a bit of a process to get it across the line – time wise, the whole process took about 15 months.”
Mr Clyne said the revamped outdoor area would be extended from about 50sqm to 150sqm.
“We’re excited because that’s what our customers really enjoy, being able to sit outside,” he said.
“Even though we’re in an industrial area, we’ve got water views and we’ve got a beautiful outside garden area that we can now utilise, especially through the summer and spring period.
“It feels great to be able to accommodate the extra people that visit us. It will be an amazing space.”
He revealed they would be introducing live music into the outside area over the summer months.
“We’ve made provisions to have it as a really nice relaxed garden atmosphere. It runs parallel with the beautiful colours of the venue … we’ve got a lot of greenery around a place now,” he said.
“We want to expand on creating a beautiful, relaxed and calm environment our guests can enjoy with friends and family.
“We’ve certainly got a quite a lot of local guests now that have made it their local, which is nice.”
He said everything was “ready to go” regarding the distillery’s expansion, with only increasing the liquor licensing for the area left to tackle.
“That’s in the works, we are a stone’s throw away from that happening,” he said.
Formally the Good Bar Mooloolaba on First Ave, the couple officially opened Paradise Bar and Bistro on June 21.
Since the new venue opened he said the distillery now focuses more on additionally catering for events and functions.
“It’s been good, we’re probably 12 to 18 months ahead from where we wanted to be or where we thought we’d be,” he said.
“The expansion interval for the bar and bistro was probably six to eight months ahead of what we were even planning.
“We just we had an opportunity to come up, probably one of those ones too good to go past, so that fast-tracked our plans a little bit.
“The new venue gives us an opportunity to utilise that as a marketing venue for the distillery and our product as well … that’s part of the reason we opened it.”
He described the new Paradise Bar and Bistro as a holiday destination with a Caribbean beach-themed interior. The “beautiful” menu offers modern Australian meals with a “tropical twist” and a focus on seafood.
“Its going pretty well,” he said.
“We only sell our spirits in the new venue, like we do at the distillery. But we have a few other beers and wine products available.
“We’ve tried to create the same environment that we have at the distillery – that really nice beachy feel.
“For our locals, we’ve got lots of meal and drink specials … we’re hoping to really get the locals to enjoy our product, that’s what it’s all about.”
He said the couple planned to expand their retail business into South-East Queensland and beyond.
“Retail sales with our new products, especially with the new cans and our XO product that have come on, has been a big boost to the business,” he said.
“Our retail business is continuing to expand every week. It’s amazing to see.”
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