Family Dream Becomes Reality at New Graceville Vietnamese Cafe

Graceville residents are set to welcome a new family-run eatery on Honour Avenue that transforms a mother’s long-term dream into a fresh destination for authentic Vietnamese street food.



A Dream Realised on Honour Avenue

The upcoming launch of Oli’s Banh Mi marks a significant milestone for local resident Stephanie Tran, who developed the business as a way to contribute to the neighbourhood she loves. Inspired by her son, the shop serves as a bridge between her heritage and the local community, offering a space that feels both personal and welcoming. 

The design of the shop focuses on a calm atmosphere, using soft green colours, curved walls, and plenty of indoor plants to create a peaceful environment for customers to visit.

Fresh Flavours and Traditional Techniques

The menu focuses on simple, high-quality ingredients that highlight the bold tastes of Vietnam. Located within walking distance of the Graceville train station, the kitchen prepares classic baguettes daily, ensuring every sandwich has the perfect crunch. Customers can choose from several traditional fillings, such as crispy roast pork with crackling, lemongrass-marinated chicken, or cold cuts served with rich pâté. 

Every order is put together on the spot, allowing people to choose their preferred level of fresh chilli alongside the standard mix of pickled carrots, daikon, cucumber, and coriander.

More Than Just Sandwiches

While the signature baguettes are the main draw, the shop also offers a variety of other traditional meals and specialty drinks. For those looking for lighter options, the menu includes fresh rice paper rolls and vermicelli bowls topped with grilled meats. 

Traditional snacks like skewers and seasoned fries are also available for a quick bite. To wash it down, the cafe serves a wide range of drinks, from modern iced matcha and hojicha lattes to traditional Vietnamese coffee made with condensed milk or a unique salted-cream topping.



Serving the Graceville Community

Although the business is designed for quick service to suit busy commuters and locals on the move, there is a small area for those who wish to sit and eat. The shop typically operates from mid-morning through the afternoon, but the kitchen stays open only as long as the fresh bread lasts for the day. As the business grows, there are future goals to expand the seating area and add even more variety to the food selection.

Published Date 12-May-2026

Love, Paella and Old Shopfronts: Valentine’s Day at Botellón in Graceville

In Graceville, Botellón sits on a leafy stretch of Honour Avenue where Valentine’s Day can be kept pleasantly low-key. It’s the sort of place that rewards lingering — shared plates, passing forks, and conversation that outlasts the first round.



The venue sits within the Central Buildings, a row of shops designed and built around 1924 by builder and designer Walter Taylor. It’s the sort of place that anchors a neighbourhood. It’s recognisable, well-worn, and still doing what it was made for: bringing people in off the footpath. 

Botellón leans into that intimacy rather than fighting it, with a cosy indoor dining room and alfresco seating that suits long, light-strung evenings. The restaurant itself is relatively young by Graceville standards, opening in 2019 and quickly becoming a western-suburbs favourite for Spanish-inspired dining. 

Photo Credit: Botellon/Facebook

That mix — a new restaurant inside an old building — gives it a particular character. The food feels celebratory, but the room still feels like the neighbourhood.

This Valentine’s Day (Saturday, 14 February), Botellón is keeping things straightforward: lunch runs à la carte, while the evening shifts into a set menu ($95 per person). It’s an approach that suits the day’s many versions. Some people want a date-night ritual; others want a catch-up with friends; plenty will come as families, because a shared meal is one of the easiest ways to keep everyone talking.

Photo Credit: Botellon/Facebook

At lunch, the restaurant’s à la carte format lends itself naturally to seasonal, shareable dishes. In its Valentine’s promotion, the venue features starters such as burrata with smoky escalivada and baked saganaki finished with salsa agridulce and oregano, alongside paella as the centrepiece. 

The mariscos paella is described in the same promotion as a generous mix of prawns, scallops, octopus and chorizo, brought together with saffron aioli — the kind of dish that does what good food should do on a day like Valentine’s: it gives the table something to gather around.

Photo Credit: Botellon/Facebook

Dinner is more structured. It begins with a choice of oysters with mignonette or manchego cheese with caperberries and quince, followed by bread — sourdough with garlic chive butter or a gluten-free house-made loaf — alongside whipped ricotta with chilli honey, walnut and oregano. From there, the menu moves into king prawn with brown butter, soy sauce, paprika oil, parsley, capers and guindillas, plus eggplant chips with lime honey.

Photo Credit: Botellon/Facebook

For mains, diners choose between paella (chicken and chorizo, prawn and chorizo, or vegetarian) with chimichurri, or a 250 g striploin served with spicy XO sauce or chimichurri. Dessert offers two distinct finishes: chocolate cremeux, or churros with dulce de leche.

Photo Credit: Botellon/Facebook

What makes the night feel like Botellón, though, isn’t just the sequence of courses. It’s the way the whole format encourages lingering. The venue’s Valentine’s promotion also mentions cava as the celebratory thread, from classic sparkling pours to a playful cava sangria with fruit and brandy. If you’re not marking an occasion with bubbles, you can keep it quieter: a glass of something Spanish and chilled, a long chat, and the kind of evening that doesn’t need a grand gesture to feel special.

In a suburb that prizes its local rituals — cafés you return to, walking routes you can do without thinking, shopfronts that don’t change much even when the businesses inside them do — Botellón has slipped into place with ease. 



On Valentine’s Day, it’s less about “the perfect night” and more about a very Graceville idea: good food in a familiar spot, shared with whoever you’re lucky enough to have on the other side of the table.

Published 6-Feb-2026

Controversial Graceville Childcare Centre Now Approved Despite Opposition

Plans for a childcare centre on Honour Avenue in Graceville have been granted approval, despite strong opposition from the community.


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An application (A005541414) lodged by Graceville Skies Pty Ltd reveals the facility will be a two-storey, 822-sqm building with space for 135 children and operating hours between 7:00 am to 7:00 p.m.

The site will have 34 car parking spaces including 12 spaces allocated to childcare centre staff. Access to the subject site will be from Verney Road West, whilst pedestrians are also able to access the site via Honour Avenue.

In addition to a childcare centre, the applicant also lodged plans for an 811-sqm space for office and retail that will operate from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

View from Honour Avenue (Photo credit: developmenti.brisbane.qld.gov.au)

Those in opposition said they feel the childcare centre is not compatible in design or scale with the surrounding homes. Residents are also calling on Council to take into account the massive spike in childcare centres approved and pending approval.

In the present, there are established childcare care centres in Graceville offering hundreds of places. Then there’s another proposed childcare centre at 232 Graceville Ave (now in pre-lodgement) which aims to offer up to 82 places.

Subject site at 293 Honour Avenue, Graceville (Photo credit: developmenti.brisbane.qld.gov.au

“Verney Road West is already a narrow street at that end and this purpose of development (childcare) would dramatically increase the car noise, traffic and congestion in Verney Road West which would also flow into Honour Ave,” one submitter wrote.

On the opposite side of the road, another developer lodged plans to build an integrated two-storey commercial building. Area resident Josephine Kennedy said she’s one of those who welcome the redevelopment of the former Nanette Lilley site, but not in its current form, as it fails to comply with numerous aspects of City Plan 2014 including the Sherwood Graceville Neighbourhood Plan.

Artist’s impression of the childcare centre (Photo credit: developmenti.brisbane.qld.gov.au)

Under the Neighbourhood Plan, streets and areas will present strong traditional building character and will retain pre-1946 houses. It also indicates that new houses and extensions to houses will be built in keeping with the local pre-1946 streetscape characteristics.

Submitters are entitled to lodge an appeal with the Planning and Environment Court against Council’s decision to approve the proposed development.