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Our Ties to Blue Tongue Pantry in Thorneside

Have you ever heard of Blue Tongue Pantry cafe, overlooking the water in Thorneside on Brisbane’s bayside, and thought, “hmm, that name sounds familiar…”? Yep, you’d be right – we started that, and we’re still closely linked to the Pantry to this day!

Our thanks to Blue Tongue Pantry for sharing their origin story online – which we’re reposting right here:

Blue Tongue Pantry’s Origins in Disability Support

If you’ve dined with us before, you know Blue Tongue Pantry as a great cafè by the bay in Thorneside, for hearty breakfasts, leisurely lunches, and of course excellent coffee! But you may not know how we started, where we got our name, and what continues to fuel our values and goals each day.

Our roots, in fact, lay in the disability support sector!

A Cafe with a Cause

Blue Tongue Pantry began as a social venture to support Blue Tongue Adventure’s disability support day programs for young adults. Back in 2018, the growing ‘Blue Tongue Crew’ needed a space where they could gather as a group, develop friendships, and enjoy programs that would support them to learn new skills: whether for day-to-day confidence and growth, or to explore potential employment opportunities.  Opening the Blue Tongue Pantry cafè was the perfect solution.

A woman working in the kitchen space of a cafè. She has made a pie that is in a tin ready to bake.

The cafè became a favourite dining spot with the local community, and a space to embrace inclusion and accessibility. With our chefs and waitstaff on hand to guide the Blue Tongue Crew, they enjoyed immersive cooking workshops and learning cafè skills. For some of our participants, these opportunities opened their eyes to employment pathways. They went on to do work experience with the cafè, then study hospitality or barista courses, and now have jobs of their own in the hospitality sector. We couldn’t be prouder!

A quiet area at the back of the cafè also became a cosy, familiar space for the Blue Tongue Crew and their support team to gather each day and engage in their growing range of capacity-building programs, all designed with their goals and interests in mind.

Growing and Thriving

As a few years passed, Blue Tongue Adventure expanded its range of programs, and the Blue Tongue Crew grew in numbers. It became clear they were outgrowing the cafè space. Plus, with plans and goals for many more exciting hands-on programs, they needed facilities to make their dreams a reality! A solution was found with another social venture: the Blue Tongue Collectables showroom and centre, just a few minutes away on Tingal Road in Wynnum.

Three young men sit on the floor of a woodwork workshop, building a garden bed from wooden pallets. Two are smiling and giving the thumbs-up sign.

The new premises feature a wide range of spacious facilities including an art studio, a woodwork workshop, and room to store all the resources and supplies that help to make the hands-on disability support programs so successful. It also features a gallery space, where artworks and giftware items created by the Blue Tongue Crew in their programs are on display and available for sale.

Continued Connections

However, the move to a new centre hasn’t spelled the end of our connection with the Blue Tongue Crew! They’ve continued to join us at the Pantry for weekly cooking workshops, and this has been a main driver for the opening of our Blue Tongue Kitchen cooking school, right next door to us at Mooroondu Road Thorneside. With our expert pastry chef Allan at the helm, Blue Tongue Kitchen hosts the Blue Tongue Crew’s weekly workshops, as well as 10-week terms of capacity-building classes open to all NDIS participants. A select range of mainstream classes are also open to the general public on weekends.

So, both our cafè and the Blue Tongue Adventure crew have grown, but our core goals remain the same as they were back in 2018: to open opportunities for people with disabilities, to embrace our local community, and always to deliver uncompromised experiences.

Browse the range of Blue Tongue Industries giftware on the shelves at Blue Tongue Pantry on your next visit!

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Unique Gifts For The Festive Season

If you’re looking for unique and socially conscious gift ideas this festive season, the crew at Blue Tongue Adventure Wynnum has been working on a range of artisan creations, perfect for placing under your tree for someone special. 

A young man wearing an apron stands at a kitchen bench, tying labels onto jars of pickled preserves.

Nathan puts the finishing touches on delicious preserves at Blue Tongue Kitchen.

The Blue Tongue Crew has whipped up a range of delicious pickles, chutneys and relishes, as part of their capacity-building cooking workshops at the award-winning Blue Tongue Kitchen cooking school, under the expert guidance of Chef Allan. These preserves are ideal for festive season charcuterie platters, thoughtful gifts – or even to add some extra flavour to those post-Christmas leftovers! 

If you’re shopping for someone who deserves a luxurious treat, browse the Blue Tongue Industries range of home, bath and body products. The range includes candles, soaps, scrubs, body washes and lotions, all crafted and packaged by the Blue Tongue Crew. 

The Cooking and Industries workshops are just some of the activities on offer at Blue Tongue Adventure’s disability support day programs for young adults.  These workshops help to hone skills such as reading recipes and following procedures. Proceeds from the sale of the products are re-invested back into the programs.  

Check out the range on the shelves at Blue Tongue Pantry cafe, 100 Mooroondu Road Thorneside, opposite Beth Boyd Park. 

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Building Life Skills in our Day Programs

One of the many great things about our day programs is the chance to develop life skills.  

The Blue Tongue Crew is a young-adult age group – from school leavers to age 30. And like many young adults, they want to learn to do things for themselves, and be more independent!  

But sitting through a booorrring lesson on how to do something like use a washing machine? No one wants to do that! (Press this, click that … no thanks!) 

So, we make sure that we build life skills into all of our programs. It’s learning, but it’s fun!  

Take, for example, a day in our ‘Plot to Plate’ cooking program.  The Crew isn’t simply given ingredients and a recipe. Take about 10 steps back, to see how we really start building some skills! Here are just some of the learning experiences and problem-solving opportunities we’ll work through as a small group: 

  • What are we going to make today? Is it nutritious? Does everyone agree on today’s meal plan? 
  • What ingredients do we need? What can we use from our garden? Let’s make a grocery list. 
  • How much money do we have to spend to buy those ingredients? 
  • How are we going to get to the shops? Can we take the car today, or do we need to find another way to get there? Could we walk to the shops? Could we catch a bus? 
  • Now that we’ve made it to the shops – where in this giant grocery store will we find the ingredients we need? 
  • What can we afford with our budget? Let’s compare prices.  
  • Great, got everything – now we need to pay. Where are the registers?  Shall we self-serve, or chat to the checkout operator at the big checkout? Cash or card? How much should it cost? How much money do we have left over? 
  • Now we have to get our shopping back to the kitchen, the way we came. 
  • Back at the kitchen, we can work as a team to get started on cooking up our feast! 

Once we’re in the kitchen, we’re learning everything we can about meal preparation.  

  • We learn and practice hygiene: having clean hands, wearing gloves, and not mixing utensils.  
  • We also learn about knife skills: how to chop, dice and slice ingredients safely, and in neat, consistent sizes. (They’ll cook better AND it looks better too!)  
  • We learn about working safely in the kitchen with others around hot appliances, or things that could spill.   

And of course, we’re following a recipe, paying attention to the procedure, step by step.  

Everyone’s favourite part comes when lunch is ready, and we can take the time to sit down with our friends and enjoy the meal we prepared together! Socialising over lunch helps us to build genuine relationships. 

Importantly, we learn to clean up after ourselves, keeping the kitchen clean and tidy! Everything must be washed properly, and put back where it belongs. Surfaces get wiped down, and we leave the place spick-and-span. 

So, in one fun and engaging day at the Plot to Plate program, we work on skills such as: 

  • working with others, and respecting others’ feelings 
  • planning 
  • budgeting 
  • problem solving 
  • grocery shopping 
  • money handling 
  • kitchen safety and hygiene 
  • meal prep and cooking skills 
  • team work 
  • following procedures 
  • cleaning up after ourselves and respecting our space
     

Plus, there are days when we need to maintain our herb and vegetable gardens, so we’re learning about sustainability, as well as the value of growing our own food. 

AND we do it all while hanging out with friends, sharing fun experiences and building genuine friendships! 

Hmm, isn’t it funny …  with all these skills under our belt, using the washing machine doesn’t seem so overwhelming anymore! 

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Blue Tongue Cooking School – Always a Hit!

Here at Blue Tongue Adventure, we offer a variety of disability support programs, targeted to our Blue Tongue Crew’s goals and interests.

And without a doubt, one of the most popular is our Cooking School! (And let’s be honest, the eating part is just as much fun as the cooking part!)

Recently lasagne was on the menu for our Gold Coast Crew.  They made a list and went to the grocery store, independently finding the ingredients they needed to buy. Then the crew headed back to our Helensvale kitchen to put their chef skills to work.

Demonstrating a wide range of skills, they carefully chopped and prepared ingredients, cooked the sauce, assembled the lasagne ready for the oven … and lunch was served!

A man frying mince in a pan, smiling as he stirs with a spatula.Two people build a lasagne in a tray, layering sauce and lasagne sheets.A person holds out a plate of lasagne with garlic bread on the side.

Meanwhile our Brisbane crew tried their hands at making sushi bowls.  Working as a team to prepare and cook the ingredients, they assembled a delicious and healthy meal, sitting down to enjoy it together.

A young man in a kitchen chops chicken on a chopping board, wearing blue rubber gloves. A young man chops vegetables on a chopping board. He is looking up at the camera and smiling.A man frying diced chicken in a frypan on a gas stove. He is smiling and concentrating on stirring the chicken with tongs.

Cooking School supports our Blue Tongue Crew to learn and develop independence and confidence in meal preparation, from sourcing ingredients through to preparing, cooking, and cleaning up afterward. It’s a chance to learn all about food hygiene and knife skills, and follow recipes they can replicate at home.  It’s also pretty cool having access to commercial kitchen facilities at Blue Tongue Pantry – our Crew gets a taste of what working in hospitality might be like!

Can’t wait to see what’s on the menu next week …