Fresh take on iconic Evergreen brand in new CBDRobina location

Beloved Bundall restaurant pops up to serve central Gold Coast business district

Owners of the original Evergreen Pavilion Restaurant in Bundall have opened the doors to their latest creation – bringing a much-loved Gold Coast eatery back to life with Evergreen Café in Robina.

After owning and operating their beloved Bundall restaurant for nine years, husband and wife, Robert and Lynne Powell, ran the popular Flavors@Ferry at Ferry Rd Markets for five years. Now the couple are popping up again with a new Evergreen project at street level of iconic corporate tower, The Rocket.

After undertaking a full renovation, the new Evergreen Café now offers ‘fresh food, cooked daily’ with a la carte breakfast and licensed lunch menu, in addition to take away, corporate catering and functions.

“We returned to England to visit family and when we came back to the Gold Coast, we wanted to keep working in the hospitality industry and start another project – our lives have always been all about restaurants,” Lynne said.

“It was the perfect option for our next venture – to open a corporate café right in the middle of CBDRobina, an epicentre for business in Gold Coast City.

“We’re already getting a lot of business people coming down from upstairs, popping in for a quick bite or takeaway coffee.

“There is also a lot of great potential for business and event catering in the area – and this suits our extensive catering experience very well.”

A formally trained chef with 35 years’ experience, Robert has run multiple five-star hotels and resorts throughout the United States, Europe, United Kingdom and Australia.

Robert trained at high-profile London hotel, The Dorchester, before leading teams of more than 70 chefs worldwide at the Sheraton and Radisson hotels.

Regardless of which establishment Robert and Lynne are running at the time, the same ‘yes I can’ philosophy underpins everything they do.

“Our philosophy in a nutshell is ‘yes I can’,” said Robert.

“We’ve always lived by our philosophy that we can provide whatever our customer wants, which is something I learned when working at the Radisson.

“This time around, we were also fortunate to be able to bring on board some staff who worked with us at the old Evergreen in Bundall.

“We were really happy some of our original team agreed to work with us again – the Evergreen brand is as much about our people as it is the food and the customer service.”

Robert said Evergreen Café’s new menu combined fresh and innovative dishes with classic favourites from the Bundall restaurant.

He said Evergreen Café would offer an extensive catering menu, including platters of gourmet sandwiches, a healthy salad bar, fresh fruit, slices and cakes, antipasti platters with crusty bread and condiments, and a range of hot dishes.

“The main difference this time around is our new Evergreen Café is more of a corporate eatery, for when people are in a hurry and need to get in and out quickly and back to work,” Robert said.

“Having said that, we will still have our famous Evergreen Specialty Salad with a caramelised garlic dressing, as well as our Caesar salad. Those were two of our biggest sellers years ago, so we had to bring them back.

“We also used to sell hundreds of our triple-decker club sandwiches at the Bundall restaurant, so they’re back on the menu, too.”

The insideR team can vouch for the deliciousness of the Caesar salad. A number of those crispy fresh salads have already been spied in our office in The Rocket in the short time since Evergreen opened.

Robert and Lynne’s Top 3 menu favourites

Evergreen Club Sandwich: Toasted triple-decker club sandwich with grilled chicken, bacon, cos lettuce, and a sundried tomato and basil aioli.
Evergreen Specialty Salad: Rocket, Spanish onion, roasted capsicum toasted walnuts and Grana Padano cheese with caramelised garlic dressing
Mediterranean vegetables on Turkish: Eggplant, zucchini, avocado, feta and tomato on Turkish bread with home made chili jam.