The World Champion Came to Fortitude Valley — and Nobody Had to Queue for a Bad Cup

On a Wednesday morning in late May, 515 St Pauls Terrace was already packed before the city had finished its first coffee.

People queued out the door, vouchers in hand, for something that doesn't happen often: a chance to drink a coffee made by the best barista in the world, in a brand new café, on opening day. The Hideout Specialty Coffee — Brisbane's most quietly ambitious coffee operation — had just opened its third location, and it had done so with characteristic generosity and zero fanfare.

Free entry. Free coffee. A guest brew bar featuring Jack Simpson, the 2025 World Barista Champion, alongside Karl Lee, the 2026 Australian National Cup Tasters Champion. And behind it all, Eddie Cho — the soft-spoken founder who keeps building things he initially had no intention of building.

The Third Place That Almost Wasn't

Eddie didn't go looking for Fortitude Valley.

After opening his first location on Adelaide Street and a second on Edward Street, he had his hands full — a major renovation at Adelaide Street, an education programme, food catering, mobile carts. "I try to settle down everything," he told us on the morning of the opening. "Our teams are going to be stretched otherwise."

He turned down plenty of approaches. Agencies, real estate agents, landlords — all with opportunities he politely declined. Then one persistent contact found the St Pauls Terrace site and called him. Eddie, this is a so-called spot, you need to come.

He went. And it was right.

The location ticked every box: high foot traffic, surrounded by government workers, a building with supportive owners, and an existing fitout that — with some significant reworking — had the bones he needed. What it didn't have was warmth. The previous tenants had built a workspace that felt closed off, staff separated from customers. Eddie demolished the bar section entirely and opened it up. "I was focusing on the vibe," he said. "Warm and welcoming. The previous one was very cold and dry."

The result is a space that feels like an extension of The Hideout's ethos: considered, generous, and built for people who actually want to linger.

Three Blends, One Vision

The coffee programme at St Pauls Terrace is quintessentially Hideout. Three house blends — Four Trees, Blue Sanctuary, and Red Arena — each paired with a specific pastry, developed by head pastry chef Tony and senior pastry chef Jairo. The pairing isn't incidental; it's deliberate, a project Eddie and his chefs have completed and refined. Next comes food pairing: signature drinks alongside small dishes, a full sensory experience built around the coffee rather than alongside it.

The beans themselves come from Axil Coffee Roasters — a Melbourne-based roaster with a reputation built over decades in the specialty coffee world. The relationship with The Hideout is relatively new (three to four months), but the connection goes back further. Eddie met Jack Simpson, Axil's most celebrated barista, at a trade show in Melbourne in 2022. Axil's head of sales helped cement the partnership. Matt Crowley, Axil's head roaster, worked with Eddie to select and blend the specific origins that now define The Hideout's menu.

It's the kind of supply chain relationship that specialty coffee people talk about in hushed tones — traceable, collaborative, intentional.

The Man Behind the Championship

Jack Simpson has been competing for nine years. He won the World Barista Championship in October 2025 in Milan — a competition where a single representative from each of 50 to 70 countries competes across a gruelling 15-minute routine. In that routine, a barista serves four judges an espresso each, a milk drink, an iced coffee, and a designer drink — while simultaneously explaining their philosophy, their sourcing decisions, their approach to the craft.

Jack's routine centred on value and responsibility towards producers. The coffee he served at the World Championship — the same coffee he was making at The Hideout's opening — came from Finca Zaza in Colombia. A natural process coffee, aromatic and sweet, produced in a single lot of around 100 kilograms. Axil bought 80 kilos. Much of it went to competitions. A portion of it came to Fortitude Valley on a Wednesday morning, and was handed to Brisbane coffee lovers who, by and large, had never tasted anything like it.

"There's not many opportunities you get to do that," Jack told us. "I'm really glad I could do it today."

When you win the world championship, there's an unwritten rule: you don't compete again. Jack is at peace with that. "I put everything in my life on hold when I was competing," he said. In 2026, he's visited 13 countries already. He makes coffee around the world, talks about coffee, meets baristas from every corner of the industry.

On the morning of the opening, Jack ran a station serving his championship coffee — that Finca Zaza natural — while Karl Lee managed a pour-over bar and Tate, one of The Hideout's senior baristas, handled the latte station out front. The crowd responded exactly as you'd hope: surprised, delighted, converted.

"Most people say — I didn't know coffee could taste like that," Jack said. "That's exactly what I want to hear."

How to Actually Drink It

We asked Jack the question everyone wants answered and nobody asks: what's the right way to drink coffee?

He gave an honest answer. "How you normally enjoy coffee is the best way to experience it. Because if you're drinking a latte with three sugars every day and I give you a black coffee, you're not going to enjoy it as much as you could."

That said — espresso, black, no additions, is where his heart is. He makes the case not by being precious about it, but by explaining the craft: nine bars of pressure, a fine grind, equipment that makes or breaks the extraction. "Small variations or mistakes are amplified in espresso," he said. "To get what you'd call a perfect espresso is very difficult to find. That's why I love it."

The Quiet Ambition of Eddie Cho

For those who know Eddie's story — and The Urbanite has covered it since the beginning — none of this is a surprise. He built The Hideout from scratch, and staffed this new location by embedding new hires into existing stores two to three months before opening rather than pulling experienced staff and diluting quality elsewhere. Weekly in-house training sessions. A leadership team structure that distributes responsibility evenly across all three locations.

It's the kind of operational detail that doesn't make it onto Instagram, but it's what makes the difference between a café that opens well and one that sustains.

Every shop is the main shop. Every project is its own question. The third location isn't the end destination. Eddie is too restless and curious for that.

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The Hideout Specialty Coffee at 515 St Pauls Terrace, Fortitude Valley is open Monday to Friday. During Ekka season, they'll open on weekends too.

Find them at thehideoutspecialtycoffee.com or on Instagram @thehideoutspecialtycoffee.

The opening event was held in partnership with Axil Coffee Roasters (@axilcoffeeroasters).

Photo: Phillipe Blake / The Big Curious