The owner of Cheeky Grin Coffee, Stefan Iannace, is keen to see if his café can make it three in a row at the Eastside Business Awards.

Opening a café during the first year of the COVID pandemic required a huge amount of conviction and confidence.

But for Stefan Iannace, owner of  Cheeky Grin Coffee in Firle, his leap of faith in such uncertain times paid dividends.

Cheeky Grin gained traction quickly, thanks to a loyal local following that helped deliver a win in the Eastside Business Awards in 2021, which included a prize of a $1000 advertising package with Solstice Media, publisher of CityMag.

The café won Best Emerging/Startup Business in the Awards, which is run by the City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters, and came runner up for Best Coffee.

Stefan was extremely grateful for the recognition.

“Cheeky Grin was six months old when we won; it gave people a bit more reassurance to say, ‘Yes, it really is a good spot to go’,” he says.

Cheeky Grin used its prize to run a digital partnership story on CityMag to celebrate and promote its first birthday in October 2021.

“I think that probably gave us the most traction, because we were still so new and trying to get a bit more awareness of who we are and where we are.”

Owner of Cheeky Grin Coffee, Stefan Iannace

During the 2021 nomination period, Stefan encouraged customers and social media followers to vote for the café, but in 2022 he decided to see how popular his café would be unprompted.

“I thought, if we don’t push it too heavily, it just shows that the community are behind us more than we might think,” Stefan says.

Winning the 2022 Best Coffee Award, Cheeky Grin received $1000 worth of business advisory services courtesy of AFM Services and a $1000 advertising package with Solstice Media.

Solstice Media account manager Kate Robinson says it’s important for the publisher to foster business growth in South Australia.

“Across InDaily, CityMag and SALIFE, we speak to over 500,000 unique people each month, which is a decent number for Adelaide,” says Kate. “Because our digital channels are all free to access, we’re able to reach a broad audience – something our small business and startup clients have found really beneficial.”

Stefan chose to invest in another partnered story on the CityMag website, this time promoting Cheeky Grin’s fundraising for Mental Health Awareness Month.

“We ran events every weekend,” he explains. “To have that extra coverage really benefited us and helped fill up the events.

“All the events were a donation upon entry and that all went to Beyond Blue. I think we raised all up close to $2000 or $3000 over the course of the month.”

The Eastside Business Awards are voted for by the community, and this year Stefan is again planning a low-key approach.

“For us, it’s just a matter of putting it on our social media and spending a little bit of time printing out some flyers to display in the cafe,” he says.

“I have a different mindset again this year. It’s a competitive mindset in myself personally, where I want to go back-to-back and see if we can do it again and see if we’re still performing at a high level.”

Voting for the Eastside Business Awards is open until March 16th – vote now for your favourite business in the City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters.