Two best friends have opened their own cafe in South Townsville, focusing on good coffee and ‘cheesy bread’. Find out where you can find the hidden shop.
Best friends Bianca Cantarero and Natalia Borghi have known each other since primary school.
The Brazilian natives stuck together like glue until Ms Cantarero moved to Sydney, but it didn’t take long for Ms Borghi to follow.
“Natalia came to visit me and she stayed. It was great but then I went to Tasmania and she ended up on the Gold Coast,” Ms Cantarero said.
In 2021, Ms Cantarero and her partner moved to Townsville, where she heard about a cafe opportunity through her hairdresser.
Padoka owners Natalia Borghi and Bianca Cantarero.
The Allure Hotel and Apartments building on McIlwraith Street had an empty space on the ground floor and management was hunting for a hospitality operator to utilise the venue.
“I told her me and my friend always wanted to run a cafe together, but she was living on the Gold Coast and I forgot about it,” Ms Cantarero said.
That Christmas, Ms Borghi travelled to Townsville to visit her best friend and new baby, and fell in love with the city.
“I said, ‘Wow, let’s move here.’ We ended up selling our house on the Gold Coast, I thought Townsville was amazing,” Ms Borghi said.
“It wasn’t until later Bianca brought up the cafe idea and I thought why not, we’d always wanted to do it but never thought it was possible.”
Ms Borghi left her childcare job and Ms Cantarero emerged from being a full-time mum to run their new cafe – called Padoka.
“Padoka is a nickname for your local coffee shop in Brazil,” Ms Borghi explained.
“We needed something that was Brazilian and meant a lot of us, but could also be pronounced by the Aussie accent.”
Both have experience working in hospitality and Ms Cantarero used to work as a barista.
The mum said she was shocked by the lack of good coffee culture in Townsville when she first moved up.
“I was walking around looking for a good coffee, I’d come from places like Sydney where there was so much speciality coffee,” Ms Cantarero said.
“In the cafe we are using a special type of Victorian coffee called Veneziano.”
The specialty coffee used in the cafe, Veneziano Coffee Roasters, is a Melbourne-based brand.
Alongside the coffee, the women have brought South American snack food into the store.
“We have cheesy bread which is a traditional Brazilian treat you might have at a cafe or for lunch. They are gluten-free which is good as well,” Ms Cantarero said.
“We’ve also got some American drinks.”
Ms Borghi said they were still working on signs to place out the front of the Allure Hotel building.
“I’ve been very grateful for everyone who’s come in,” she said.
“We open at 7am and close at 2:30am. There is no staff at the moment, just us … but every morning you walk in and go, ‘Wow, we’re actually doing this.’”
The friends first opened the doors on Friday, June 9.