If you travel to Mt Gravatt Outlook over the next three months you will still be able to have your share of indigenous magic at the lookout's Echidna Magic Cafe.
The Echidna Magic Cafe – so-named because Mount Gravatt was known by Jagera and Turrbul aboriginal people as "Kagarr Mabul", which means "place of echidnas" – has been run by Aboriginal group First Contact since 2010.
Brisbane City Council "with great sadness" on Tuesday night terminated the 20-year lease that First Contact has held over the cafe since 2010.
Small problems - like forgetting that everyone, everywhere, and any time will need to go to the loo - eventually became one of a number of problems.
As singer Paul Kelly once wrote of indigenous activist, Vincent Lingiari, 'from little things, big things grow".
Sadly, there were problems.
However, Echidna Magic Cafe will remain in its current business hands until late January 2015.
Brisbane Lifestyle Chairman, Cr Krista Adams said that Council was now working with Echidna Magic Cafe to negotiate an end date for their lease agreement.
"We anticipate that the tenant will be required to vacate the premises in late January 2015," Cr Adams said.
"Council will work with the tenant to negotiate a suitable end date, several months' from now," she said.
"This will allow the tenant to honour their current bookings and to plan for their future."
A new Expression of Interest process will soon be called to help find a new operator, she said.
"That will commence as soon as possible to minimise any period that the café is closed," Cr Adams said.
"Council will look to award a social or community enterprise with the opportunity for the lease, as a way to support the local Mount Gravatt community."
As the Echidna Magic Cafe's business card suggests, the cafe is one of the Brisbane's best-kept secrets for the city's visitors and residents wanting views over the city and Moreton Bay.
It is a rival for city and Moreton Bay views to that of Mt Coot-tha.
It is easier to get to from the city.
It doesn't have Milton Road to deal with (....shudder) and it has a good written history at the park – indigenous and European - of how the park's reserve and the cafe evolved.
It is not crowded with tourist buses.
The lookout is well maintained. There are nice walks. You can see to three sides of the city – to the CBD, to Moreton Bay and out over towards the west.
From a little further down Mt Gravatt, you can even look east over Mansfield, McKenzie and over the Gateway Motorway.
You can get a nice cup of coffee on the verandah.
First Contact wanted to operate the cafe to give young indigenous people solid experience in the retail and hospitality industry.
That was the dream of Brisbane's first – now late - indigenous councillor, Robbie Willams, who set up First Contact Development Corporation, which eventually won a $437,000 loan from Indigenous Business Australia to build the cafe.
From little things, big things grow.
