From tiny coffee spot to 60-seat cafe – Vector Coffee expands in Southport
Vector Coffee has come a long way from its humble 15-seat beginnings. After seven years of doing big things in a little space, the Southport favourite has emerged from a major expansion with 60 seats, a full kitchen and a whole lot more room to play. Meet Vector 2.0.
Owners Tom and Kirsten Palmer first opened Vector on Young Street in 2019 and had been eyeing off the tenancy next door for some time. By late last year, the cafe was regularly reaching capacity – and they were running out of room.
“We would see people walk past, look in, see that it was full and walk away. On weekends, we’d have a wait list,” Tom said. “Even on my days off, I’d like to come in with the kids, but we never really could because there wasn’t enough space.”
When the neighbouring tenancy became available, Tom and Kirsten jumped at the opportunity to grow the pint-sized space. What was initially going to be a straightforward expansion quickly snowballed into a complete gut and rebuild, with little more than the original floor tiles surviving.
And with Vector’s seating now quadrupled, Tom can finally nab a table at his own cafe.
Gold Coast-based Space Cubed designed the new-look Vector, bringing a warm, diner-style edge to the larger indoor-outdoor footprint. Kirsten also put her creative stamp on the space, painting the colourful artwork seen throughout.
The full kitchen is where Vector 2.0 really starts to flex, giving the team room to make more from scratch and experiment with new ideas. Case in point – the house-baked ciabatta, which took plenty of testing and tweaking to nail and now stars across the new sandwich menu.
The Vodka Chicken Parm stacks crumbed chicken thigh, creamy tomato vodka sauce, fresh mozzarella, basil and parmesan. The Mortadeli pairs mortadella with pistachio pesto, stracciatella and hot honey, while the Beef Dip loads up slow-cooked beef, chimichurri mayo, pickled onion, rocket and shoestring fries, with au jus for dunking.
“The sandwiches I’ve been so excited for,” Tom says. “It’s like the culmination of something I’ve wanted to do for ages.”
On the breakfast front, there’s classics like chilli scramble with whipped goats fetta and house-made chilli oil, the Avo & Hash with house-made hashies, smashed avocado, goats fetta and poached eggs, as well as a crowd-pleasing bacon-and-egg roll. The menu is intentionally concise, leaving room for a monthly special and plenty of experimentation – something that comes naturally to former physicist Tom and former physics teacher Kirsten.
Subscribe for updates“We bring that scientific aspect where we’ll iterate and experiment with stuff to try and get it really, really good,” Tom explains.
The tinkering continues on the drinks front. Alongside Vector’s coffee program, there’s a line-up of specialty sips including the Mont Blanc, the Choc Espresso Cloud with double espresso, coconut water and chocolate cream, and the Yuzu Cold Brew Spritz mixing yuzu syrup, iced filter and Mischief Brew Tonic No. 2. A different guest roaster also takes over the single-origin espresso and batch brew each week.
There’s plenty more to come from Vector 2.0, with pop-up burger nights set to take Vector after dark – potentially as soon as October.
For opening hours and contact info, head to The Directory.
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