Cheese Me Baby has been gaining a loyal following at the city’s weekly farmers markets but has recently opened a permanent outpost in Mermaid Beach. The converted shipping container kitchen has transformed the formerly unutilised space on the corner of the Gold Coast Highway and Tamborine Street into a thriving community-centric locale slinging coffee and seriously next-level toasties. There are a handful of stools and tables spilling onto the sidewalk but the intention is to create the kind of environment where you can roll out a rug and kick back and relax on the grass, if that’s more your style. At its heart, Cheese Me Baby is a place for the people. It’s easy and unpretentious, so you can roll up (literally, there are bicycles everywhere) for a coffee and a baguette or sprawl out in the afternoon sunshine with a wine and a plate of cheese – the kind of laid-back village vibe that makes the Gold Coast so darn special. Cheese Me Baby’s menu is intended to be fairly unstructured. Things will change regularly based on what the crew can get their hands on at the markets, but for now hungry hoards can tuck into a couple of light bites including house-made banana bread with whipped ricotta and salted-caramel sauce and flaky, buttery croissants with jam and butter. The toasties are the stuff of turophile’s dreams with three decadent fat stacks to choose from alongside a picnic box, which is brimming with Adelaide Hills double-cream brie, Nimbin Valley blue, Persian fetta, truffle salami and other such niceties. As for the drinkables, Burleigh’s Social Espresso is pouring through the coffee machine from early morning alongside cold-pressed juice and Adaptogenic Hot Chocolate from Byron Bay’s Social Alchemy. Those in the mood for something a little stronger can peep a tightly curated selection of sips from Mermaid’s own SOMM Wine Store, with the intention to roll out Sunday sessions and even chef pop-ups in the near future.