Celebrating the people who run cafes, trades, studios and shopfronts across Townsville. A new profile every week.
Belgian Gardens
How Bessie's Bakehouse became a Belgian Gardens institution
When Beth Carmichael took over a tired corner shop in Belgian Gardens five years ago, she had a single oven, $4,000 in savings and an old family sourdough recipe she had been baking on weekends. Today, Bessie's Bakehouse is the unofficial heart of the suburb. Locals queue down the footpath on Saturday mornings for cardamom buns, slow-fermented loaves and the coffee that Beth's partner Marco roasts in a converted shed out the back. The cafe employs nine people and supplies bread to a dozen restaurants between the CBD and Pallarenda. Beth credits the early loyalty of her neighbours and the patience of her landlord during the first two cyclone seasons. The bakery hosts a free monthly community breakfast for new residents and donates leftover loaves to a women's refuge through Foodbank North Queensland. Beth wants to add a small baking school next year, teaching the same skills she taught herself off YouTube during long humid afternoons. It is a story about the dry tropics: showing up, being patient, and feeding the people who walk past your door.
Aitkenvale
How Reef Coast Electrical grew from a one-ute sole trader to a team of eight
Jake Tolmie started Reef Coast Electrical with a second-hand ute, a roll of cable and a phone number he handed out at the bowls club. His first year was lean — domestic call-outs in Vincent and Aitkenvale, the occasional fit-out for a friend's cafe in Hyde Park. Twelve years on, Reef Coast runs eight licensed electricians out of a workshop off Bowen Road. The shift came when Jake said yes to a small commercial fit-out he was not sure he could deliver, then put the profit back into hiring his first apprentice. Today the business mentors three apprentices at any one time, all sourced through TAFE Queensland's Pimlico campus. Jake credits a slow, deliberate approach to growth: only hire when the work is already there for six months ahead, never undercut another local sparky, and answer every quote within 24 hours. The team handles everything from cyclone-rated solar installs in Bushland Beach to switchboards in the city. Jake sponsors the local under-12s rugby league side and a women's tradie scholarship through TAFE. He wants Reef Coast to be the business his apprentices one day own a slice of.
Townsville CBD
How Coral Light Photography found a niche shooting the reef from above
Maia Henderson was a magazine photographer in Brisbane before she moved north to be closer to the Great Barrier Reef. She spent her first year in Townsville waiting tables on Palmer Street and saving for a drone capable of holding a stabilised cinema rig. Coral Light Photography now shoots aerial and underwater work for tourism operators, marine researchers and the occasional wedding on Magnetic Island. Maia's portfolio of bleaching-survey imagery has been used by two JCU research teams and a national documentary. Running a creative business in a regional city has meant getting comfortable saying yes to varied briefs — corporate headshots one week, a sunrise sail-out the next. Maia rents a small studio above a Flinders Street barbershop and shares her edit suite with a videographer friend to keep overheads low. She runs free portfolio workshops for emerging photographers from underrepresented backgrounds every quarter and donates time to the local turtle rescue. Her advice to creatives moving to Townsville is simple: build a niche your city actually needs, then make work nobody else can.
North Ward
How Tropic Strength Studio built a community gym a block from The Strand
Ali Wahid opened Tropic Strength Studio in 2021 in a converted warehouse a single block back from The Strand. The original pitch was modest: a small-group strength gym for people who found commercial chains intimidating. Four years later, Tropic has 380 members, three full-time coaches and a waiting list for its early morning class. The studio's character comes from its members as much as its programming — nurses from Townsville University Hospital, defence personnel from Lavarack, retirees recovering from hip replacements and teenagers learning to deadlift safely. Ali keeps the price deliberately low for under-25s and offers a free fortnight to anyone new to town. The studio runs an annual charity lift-a-thon for the Townsville Hospital Foundation and a free women's introduction to strength program every February. Ali says the business works because the dry-tropics lifestyle pushes people outdoors, and a strength habit indoors gives them more years of doing what they love outside. He is planning a small recovery space — sauna, ice bath, stretching — to open next year. The harder lesson, he says, was charging what the work is worth.
Run a local business?
We profile a new Townsville business every week. If yours has a story worth telling, we want to hear it.