It has taken Chris Roach nearly six months to renovate the former Addimi cafe building on Peel Street in Tamworth's CBD into the Colombian-inspired Panela cafe.
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"I've been in here since June, slowly renovating and setting it up, but every week I get new ideas or want to try something different," Mr Moran said.
"So that's the approach we will take [with the menu], me and the rest of the staff will always try to change things to see what works or try something that we want to try."
Mr Roach is the head chef at Gold Leaf Catering in Tamworth, and hopes to keep the cafe as his "side project", currently opening every day from 7am to 3pm, for coffees, cakes, milkshakes, hot toasties, and share platters.
With 50 staff on the Gold Leaf Catering books, Mr Roach said the new cafe would also give some of his current casual employees the opportunity to work full-time.
"The menus will always change and will be seasonal. Just when you get sick of a dish, we might change it to something else," Mr Roach said.
"We want to keep it fresh and exciting. We don't want to keep it too static."
Panela slid under the Tamworth coffee lovers' radar with a "soft opening" on Monday, November 20, with Mr Roach saying they're currently just "fine-tuning" the processes to get it "fully operational" before the Tamworth Country Music Festival in January.
"Once we get a liquor license started in January, hopefully it will be run as a bar throughout the day," Mr Roach said.
"It's just something casual. It's nothing serious. It'll just be coffees and a quick snack to catch-up with someone in the mornings and then a glass of wine and a share plate in the afternoons.
"This will be more like a daytime bar. A meeting place. And once we get a liquor license, there'll be a lot of shared meals. But I don't imagine it opening until too late [in the evening]."
Mr Roach has never been to the Latin American country of Colombia, but named the cafe after an unrefined "pure" type of cane sugar from there called Panela.
"It's not refined, it's pure, and the Colombians have it in cakes and coffee," he said.
The name gave him the inspiration to create a "fun atmosphere" by basing the cafe on the colours and patterns of Colombia, and also including live South American fish swimming in a tank near the front entrance.
"The main focus about coming here, is so people can have a chat, nibble on some food and have a glass of wine. I think that's the atmosphere that I really want to go for in the end," Mr Roach said.
"But then, I just want to make sure we have the nicest coffee that we can make and keep that quick and consistent."
