{"id":718332,"date":"2026-06-06T04:54:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T04:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/718332\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T04:54:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T04:54:29","slug":"underbool-community-hooked-on-coffee-van-that-opens-for-20-minutes-a-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/718332\/","title":{"rendered":"Underbool community hooked on coffee van that opens for 20 minutes a day"},"content":{"rendered":"

She arrives out of the fog like clockwork.<\/p>\n

Headlights first. Then the hum of her SUV rolling into a gravel car park on a quiet stretch of the Mallee Highway.<\/p>\n

It’s 7:25am. Underbool, the small country town of 215 people according to the last census, is still half-asleep.<\/p>\n

It is Tuesday. One of the two days a week when Lee Brown opens her coffee van for just 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

\"Blonde<\/p>\n

Lee Brown brews morning coffee in her truck five days a week. (ABC News: Tamara Clark)<\/p>\n

She does not waste a second: bins in, door open, awnings flicked into position.<\/p>\n

The coffee van decants with muscle memory.<\/p>\n

Inside, the machine kicks on. Grind. Tamp. Lock. Pour.<\/p>\n

And by the time the milk is frothing, utes are already lining up.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

The coffee van is a meeting place for Underbool residents and visitors. (ABC News: Tamara Clark)<\/p>\n

Underbool is about as far from Melbourne’s laneway coffee culture as you can get before crossing the South Australian border.<\/p>\n

Among the gumtrees, about 500 kilometres north-west of the latte-sipping capital, a morning coffee ritual has taken hold.<\/p>\n

\"Five<\/p>\n

The coffee van is a morning meeting place for Underbool locals. (ABC News: Tamara Clark)<\/p>\n

Flat whites. Long blacks. Even caramel lattes. Like the town it services, the coffee is made strong.<\/p>\n

And for a short, precise, almost unbelievable window of time, Lee’s coffee van is the busiest spot in town.<\/p>\n

\"Vanilla<\/p>\n

Customers can choose from a wide range of beverages. (ABC News: Tamara Clark)<\/p>\n

‘That 20 minutes is important’<\/p>\n

At 7:30am sharp, the first three customers are at the counter.<\/p>\n

And almost instantaneously, three turns into more than a dozen.<\/p>\n

\"Blonde<\/p>\n

Lee Brown working her coffee machine. (ABC News: Tamara Clark)<\/p>\n

Lee moves quickly. She knows most of her customers by name and order, and most of them know exactly how long they have got.<\/p>\n

Twenty minutes. That is the rush.<\/p>\n

“People look at my hours online and think, ‘What a waste of time,'” Lee says while frothing milk.<\/p>\n

“But that 20 minutes is important to the town.”<\/p>\n

It is important for the tradies, the farmers, the truck drivers, the socialites and the passers-by.<\/p>\n

\"Close<\/p>\n

Lee Brown’s coffee fuels the people who keep the community alive. (ABC News: Tamara Clark)<\/p>\n

They time their morning around their freshly brewed barista coffee.<\/p>\n

Lee often makes more than 30 coffees during her 20-minute shift, before heading to her other job at the Underbool Neighbourhood House.<\/p>\n

Three days a week, she stays open longer. Three hours.<\/p>\n

That’s when her alfresco chairs fill, conversations stretch out, and locals settle in.<\/p>\n

“It’s for my local people,” Lee says.<\/p>\n

‘Being a community again’<\/p>\n

For customers, it’s less about the coffee and more about what comes with it.<\/p>\n

For local shearer Hamish Farnsworth, the coffee van is a chance to see his neighbours.<\/p>\n

“The coffee is just the bit that brings everyone together,” he says.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Hamish Farnsworth has adopted freshly brewed coffee into his morning routine. (ABC News: Tamara Clark)<\/p>\n

“The coffee van does a really good job of just trying to be there for the community, more so than doing it for the money.”<\/p>\n

For farmers, days are often long and solitary. Hours in a tractor without conversation.<\/p>\n

He says five minutes spent with peers makes a difference to their mental health.<\/p>\n

“If they can just catch someone before they go to work, it’s so much better,” Hamish says.<\/p>\n

“Everyone’s more chirpy.<\/p>\n

“Some days you can drive past at 9:30 and you’ll have the ladies here having their coffee, interacting and being a community again.”<\/p>\n

Connection more than profit<\/p>\n

Lee opened the van because she missed good coffee, the type she used to order from cafes when she lived in Swan Hill.<\/p>\n

She bought the van just as COVID-19 hit. She opened the business regardless of the challenges the pandemic posed.<\/p>\n

“It was really great for our community,” Lee says.<\/p>\n

\"Four<\/p>\n

Coffee has become an important morning ritual. (ABC News: Tamara Clark)<\/p>\n

“People would come down, grab a coffee, get their mail and go to the shop.”<\/p>\n

In a town where some services are thinning, the van has become a cornerstone.<\/p>\n

‘Takes a village’<\/p>\n

Underbool woman Sonia McVicar wears many leadership hats, including secretary of the local Country Fire Authority and being on the pool advisory committee.<\/p>\n

She says the coffee van brings together the people who keep the community alive.<\/p>\n

“It takes a village,” Sonia says. “That’s what we are.”<\/p>\n

\"Sonia<\/p>\n

Sonia McVicar says the coffee van does wonders for community spirit. (ABC News: Tamara Clark)<\/p>\n

She says togetherness is a core value of the Underbool community.<\/p>\n

“A lot of volunteer work goes into the town to keep it going, and we just support each other,” Sonia says.<\/p>\n

“It’s great to support the local businesses, and Lee’s been doing a fantastic job bringing everyone together.”<\/p>\n

‘Keeping it going and growing’<\/p>\n

The Underbool population is aging. The median age in the area is 52, 14 years older than the state median, according to the 2021 census.<\/p>\n

Sonia says the aging population has forced some changes around town.<\/p>\n

“[Underbool] has gotten a bit smaller but we’re seeing a recent growth,” she says.<\/p>\n

\"Outdoor<\/p>\n

About 200 people live in Underbool. (ABC News: Tamara Clark)<\/p>\n

But Underbool is determined to keep the community spirit alive.<\/p>\n

Volunteers, fuelled by Lee’s morning coffee, run a community pantry serving fresh milk and bread, the public pool, the cemetery and the recreation grounds where new netball courts have just been installed.<\/p>\n

“I think [Underbool is] thriving and we’ve just got to keep instilling that community-mindedness into our younger ones here,” Sonia says.<\/p>\n

“And moving forward with keeping it going and growing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She arrives out of the fog like clockwork. Headlights first. Then the hum of her SUV rolling into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,348357,348359,348361,348358,44,348360],"class_list":["post-718332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-coffee-van","tag-coffee-van-open-for-20-minutes","tag-lee-brown","tag-lees-coffee-van","tag-news","tag-town-of-215-with-coffee-van"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}