Introducing Our Customer Stories to You

Meet the Humans of Muffin Break

Introducing our customers & Their Stories

Our customers are the heroes of our Muffin Break stores. Each one of you visit our stores every, single day. We’ve been able to capture handfuls of stories, understanding what moments have brought them to where they are today in life.

You’ve had the opportunity to meet our franchisees in your favourite Muffin Break store and now, it’s time we got to know you!

It has been a wonderful experience to capture these customers and their stories to be able to showcase what matters most to them.

If you have a story, share it with us, we’d love to hear from you!

Meet Sophie, Estella & Xavier

“No matter what career they have, our house will always be their home”

So I’m Sophie and this is Estella, Xavier. Usually we come here with another school family on a Tuesday to have a muffin before we take Estella to ballet. This is how we kill an hour’s time before ballet starts. Isn’t that great?! Muffin Break and ballet seem to go together! And that’s why we make the effort to do these sorts of things every week. So that we can all be together, because the time goes too quick. Xavier just turned 11. Estella’s 8 now and it feels like just the other day that he was born. So, it’s important, I think, to do these things. And if you have a muffin, it’s a bonus!

There inevitably comes that time when friendships become more important to them as they get older, and the parents take a bit more of a back seat which is fine. I think we lay the groundwork while they’re young, hopefully, it survives the test of time.

My mum was always very much like that about making the most of our times together, and still now. And I think as they get older, I just realised how quickly the time does go. In seven years, he’ll be an adult. That’s quite terrifying. She [my mum] is probably very similar to me. We actually just renovated our house so we lived with them for a little while a couple of months back, so that was really nice that she had a lot more time with the kids.

I was relatively young to become a mother. I had Xavier when I was 24. I had just finished University, met my partner and we had Xavier. I feel like that was the way it was always meant to be. I had sort of only just started my own life and grown to becoming an adult with my children, I think.

I was talking to Xavier last night, and I said to him that no matter whether they move overseas, for work, for family, whatever. No matter what career they have, that our house will always be their home, and they can come home whenever they want for the rest of their life. I think that’s important that we’ll always be a sort of base for them and they can come back if they need us.

There’s so many different roles a mother plays. Every day you play 40 different roles to children. I’m very lucky I work part-time so I take the kids to school and then a few days of the week I go to work and then I’m back for school pickups, so I’m literally there for every moment they have. My work is very flexible, so even if they need me during school I can still be there. I’d like to think I’m the most important person to them, especially at this young age. I think it’s important they have one person that’s there for every moment if they need. As long as you’re there for them if they need you, they become very independent on their own, when they’re ready, rather than it being forced upon them.

I would say that everything we do is to get them ready for their own adulthood, and the rest of their lives so I just wish them happiness, to find a career they’re happy in, to find their own families, whatever they want. Whatever they want I will be supportive of.

Meet Lisa & Fiona

“I was a carer for Fiona’s child, and we just struck up a really wonderful friendship”

Well every week we come here, we catch up, have a coffee and we share two muffins. And then go shopping, definitely. It’s not always a Wednesday but we come every week to talk about what’s happened during our week. It’s always Muffin Break that we start.

I was a carer for Fiona’s child, and we just struck up a really wonderful friendship. And once he went to another school, we just stayed in contact with one another. If we have a hard time, we can talk about it to one another and break it down. Good times, bad times.

Fiona’s just all family, a big giver. So, she has 4 children, and we had a thing at our Primary School where we did an exchange with Country School. Fiona would always put her hand up and take students from the country to her house. I mean, she already had 4 children, would she take another 2? “No worries, yeah I’ll take them!” She’s just a big giver. Fiona’s my best friend by far. I could count on her for anything.

My husband and I have one child. Our house is quiet and very sedate, really. The complete opposite. We did IVF for a long time. We got our son on the first go, and then I did another 20 cycles. We’re very lucky we got Cameron. I’m thankful for having good friends and a great family.

“My best night is when everyone’s at home, loud and boisterous and we’re sitting around the table eating.”

So Lisa is an integration aide, and I’ve got an 18 year old now with severe intellectual disability. She used to look after him at school. So from there, we formed an awesome friendship.

Each week we catch up and shop until we drop, type thing. It’s great to catch up with one another and just keep the friendship going and alive.

Yeah, the opportunity to talk about anything without judgement. We’re both pretty open with each other, we know everything about each other. So it’s just a really comfortable, nice time. There’s no pretences, no crap. It’s something to look forward to every week. Our lives are busy and sometimes quite stressful, so it’s nice just to take that escape and have a cry.

It’s been an evolving journey. When he first went to school he was more capable than he is now, I guess. And the struggles I guess he’s gone through, and we’ve gone through as a family, Lisa’s always been there to support us. I’ve got 4 kids, so yeah, this is my escape.

My best night is when everyone’s at home, loud and boisterous, and we’re sitting around the table eating. That’s what I love most. I don’t mind adding a few more to it. Come for a noise fix.

Meet Maddie

“Life is just a bowl of cherries.”

I live at home with my mum and my sister. I’m always either down the beach, or I’m walking my dogs. Or I’m taking care of my boyfriend’s dog, or taking care of my dog at home. I’m a bit of a dog person. I’m always with my family, or with my friends. I don’t have a lot of downtime. I’m always doing something. I’m pretty busy in every aspect of my life.

I love muffins. I get a choc chip muffin with cream cheese icing, literally when I need a sugar kick half way through the day. It’s just good to sit here, it’s relaxing. And when I walk up, they are like, “we know what she’s getting, just go sit down.” It’s really good!

I’ve got very close people, five girls who are my very, very, best friends. We met in a really funny way when we were in year nine and now we are all coming up to our 22nd birthday and we’re all just as close. It’s awesome. We’ve got tattoos for each other and everything. It’s a little cherry, a little group symbol. We were watching this really funny movie one of the first nights we hung out and this song “Life is just a bowl of cherries,” by Doris Day was in it. We just thought the song was so funny. It was one of those times that you cannot stop laughing. Like you just cry and cry. Ever since then we’ve always just said, “Oh life is just a bowl of cherries”. So our little symbol now is the cherry.

Meet Malcolm

“Download this, upload that, do this, do that, and I was really, really out of my depth.”

I’ve been very spoiled today. I received a lovely gift because I passed a degree. An advanced Diploma in Community Sector Management. I went back to school and finished it and we’re here celebrating!

The last time I went to school it was chalkboards. So, going back to school, and it’s all computer, and all submit stuff and all that sort of stuff, it was challenging, but I got there. It was good.

Going back to school itself is a challenge. But then walking into a classroom of probably fairly computer literate people, and I wasn’t. And having to navigate my way around submitting assignments online. There was no paper! There was absolutely no paper attached to the course. It was all online and it was a whole new world. Download this, upload that, do this, do that, and I was really, really out of my depth. But, just push through it, ask questions, and I got there.

It is totally different. That’s all I can say. I can’t say if it’s any better or any worse, it’s just different. I was going to walk a couple of times. I thought, “No, can’t do this”. But I pushed it and got there.

I come here for a specific reason, because it just got some intimacy about it. I’ve always enjoyed the coffee here. And their food’s always great. It’s consistent, and I know what I’m getting. The staff are always friendly. And we thought we’d do something pretty good for ourselves.

I used to be a competitive ballroom dancer. At 11 my sister came home with a girlfriend, and they were going off to do this ballroom dancing, and I went, “I want to go”. So, at age 11, while everyone else is playing football, I said to mum, I said, “I want to go and do dancing too”. That’s how it started.

I think getting up in the morning’s a surprise win, at my age!

What’s your story?

We all have a story to share. We’d love to hear it! Share it with us here for the chance to have it shared.