Collective effort has helped Coffee and Flowers spring to life
The owner of a Murray Bridge cafe and florist reflects on her best new business win at the 2026 Murraylands Business Awards.
This story is brought to you by the Rural City of Murray Bridge, sponsors of the 2026 Murraylands Business Awards.
Murray Bridge’s newest award-winning business is a cafe and florist that has found success by giving the people what they want.
Coffee and Flowers only opened at the Murray Bridge Marketplace shopping centre in April, right around the time nominations opened for this year’s Murraylands Business Awards.
By the end of May, Allison Direen-Thomas and the rest of the team were standing on stage at the Bridgeport Hotel, holding a winner’s certificate.
It has been a meteoric rise for a businesswoman who has taken an unlikely path to get to this point.
After a couple of decades spent mostly in hairdressing, during which she maintained her passion for floristry on the side, she took a left turn during the COVID-19 pandemic and opened an online western wear boutique.
There weren’t many businesses offering quality apparel for cowgirls and cowboys at the time, and she quickly found a niche.
That led to her opening a physical store on Adelaide Road, Murray Bridge, which remains open to this day: Rustic Edge Western Wear and Gifts.
However, she also experimented with a pop-up space at the Marketplace about a year ago … and in the windows of that shop, she put more of her flower arrangements.
They proved a hit.
At the end of that short-term lease, then, Allison wanted to find somewhere to continue her floral artistry, but knew she would need more than just flowers to keep an independent business going.
So she asked one of the baristas at her favourite cafe, Skye Gallasch, whether she would come and make coffees in the new space.
The rest is history.
“Honestly, Murray Bridge has just got behind us, which is pretty amazing,” she says.
“There’s never an empty seat.
“I’ve been in business for 25 years and I’ve never had a business where the loyalty has been so strong.”
Already, Coffee and Flowers employs more than 10 mostly part-time staff, including its full-time barista, three cooks and another florist for two days a week.
The business sources all of its flowers, and as many of its food and beverage ingredients as possible, from within the Murraylands and Adelaide Hills.
Items like croissants and scones are baked fresh on site.
It’s truly a team effort – after all, the shop is just the public-facing front for the group which calls itself Rustic Rose Collective.
That’s why, when the business was announced as the winner of the best new business award on May 29, Allison made sure everyone got up on stage.
“There’s no way we thought we would win,” she says.
“We were just there to support everyone who we were up against.
“When we won, it sort of knocked us for a six.”
Surprising though the victory was, Allison has been grateful for the community’s support more generally since she stuck her neck out to try something new only a few months ago.
“I don’t believe anything is an accident,” she says.
“I think that the harder you work, the luckier you get.
“And just listen to what people want – sometimes that’s just the easiest way to figure it out.”
