Snow spent 11 years working behind coffee machines across Adelaide before finally opening the cafe she had always dreamed of in a space she found almost by accident.
Now, after opening Snow Bean on Flinders Street, the longtime barista is running the small neighbourhood cafe on her own terms, from the coffee and pastries to the eclectic interior.
Snow spent years working her way through Adelaide’s hospitality scene, first falling in love with coffee culture at a cafe near the beach before moving to Banksia Tree, where she worked as a barista for two and a half years.
Her career eventually led her to Zeea’s, where she took on a head barista role and began training other baristas.
It was there that the idea of opening her own place really started to become a reality.
“I was working in a higher position where I could see the ins and outs, the planning and the higher-level things, and then I went for it,” Snow told Glam Adelaide.
From there, she began scouting Adelaide for somewhere she could build her own cafe, when she came across the perfect spot almost by accident.
Her husband was getting his hair cut at the barber next door when Snow came to pick him up. She parked in the nearby 15-minute spot, noticed the vacant space and began messaging the agent while she waited.
The cafe now sits at the base of an apartment building, with the space designed to become a feature of the development.
Snow is still the main barista at Snow Bean, usually working alone or alongside one other staff member, with a small pool of hospitality friends she can call on when things get busy.
After spending more than a decade working in other people’s cafes, she wanted this one to feel completely like her own.
“I have no uniform, and all the cakes and pasties, and the interior, are completely my vision,” she said.
Rather than committing to a huge pastry menu, Snow has been using the cafe’s first few months to trial different recipes and see what customers actually want.
The first is a mocha brownie made with roughly one and a half shots of espresso, created for people who might not be coffee drinkers but still want a caffeine hit.
“For people who don’t like to drink coffee but like caffeine, we tried that one and people loved it,” she said.
Then there are Snow’s almond crisps, inspired by a recipe where almonds are sautéed and bound with melted sugar.
The third signature is klecha, a Middle Eastern pastry naturally sweetened with dates.
The rest of the cabinet remains something of a revolving door, with Snow trialling new creations and deciding what stays based on how customers respond.
There are already more ideas in the works, with potential plans to turn the garden between the buildings into a shared seating area.
For now, though, Snow Bean is deliberately small, with Snow behind the machine, developing the menu and getting to know her customers.
Snow Bean Cafe
When: 7am to 5pm every day
Where: 2/248 Flinders Street, Adelaide
To find out more, click here.
