Marie David never planned on Lola’s Coffee Bar going viral, it just happened.

The pint-sized cafe, located at Ekibin Place in Tarragindi (inside Zenith Lounge barbershop, which is owned by Marie’s brother) is pretty inconspicuous, with only a few signs and a couple of tables outside marking its existence. It would be easy to miss if you’re driving past, except for the fact that most mornings – especially on weekends – a queue of customers running from the entrance to the street typically forms 30 minutes before opening.

Those tuned into Brisbane foodie TikTok will likely already be familiar with Lola’s offering. While going viral is a great way to break into the greater food-centric consciousness, it’s an elusive lightning-strike event that you can’t really count on. At Lola’s, though, lightning has struck a couple of times.

First, it turned heads with its purple-hued ube shakes. And then it did so again earlier this year with its two-toned strawberry matcha lattes, a trending beverage that Lola’s helped popularise from the outset.

“I posted [about strawberry matcha] and the next morning when I woke up, the video had around 80,000 views – and it kept climbing, and climbing, and climbing,” Marie recalls. “I got in the next day and the line was to the street – the wait time was about an hour to an hour and a half at that point, because we weren’t prepared.”

Though Lola’s continues to deftly surf the social-media algorithm, for Marie, the cafe is much more than a purveyor of buzzy beverages. It’s a link to her Filipino heritage and her family recipes (‘lola’ is Filipino for grandmother), which she has endeavoured to showcase through a tight menu of sweets and street eats.

“I think what motivated me [to open Lola’s] most was sharing Fillipino recipes and what they like,” says Marie. “Essentially, I’m doing this for them – that’s my driving force.”

Lola’s offering is set upon a foundation of ube, pandan and mango, three flavours that are the pillars of Filipino cuisine. These ingredients are showcased predominantly across a range of desserts and drinks, including pandan slice cakes, ube leche flan, pastillas, ube-filled croissants and the aforementioned Filipino-inspired shakes. Coffee is from Fonzie Abbott, with your regular flat whites and cappuccinos available alongside dirty iced pandan and ube coffees. There’s also a trio of fruit smoothies, boasting whizzed-up watermelon, lychee and honeydew.

“We started with those flavours and our main purpose is to educate people about Filipino flavours,” Marie reveals. “While our flavoured matchas are our best sellers, it was never my intention at the start to be known for our drinks. I always steer people towards the Filipino flavours, because that’s what we’re here for.”

The menu at Lola’s even extends to savoury items, with empanadas, siopao (pork-filled steam buns), pandesal rolls filled with pork asado and chicken, and longganisa (a Filipino-style sausage) turned into a classic sausage roll. This mix of items – both sweet and savoury – skirts the line between traditional and contemporary, with Marie eager to tweak the formula in playful ways, while still retaining the time-honoured spirit.

“We like to play around with different foods and flavours and give our take on traditional foods,” says Marie. “The cakes, for example, aren’t your traditional cakes – they’re light, they’re fluffy and they’re natural.”

And then there’s the matcha. Lola’s Coffee Bar offers a four-strong selection of matcha-infused beverages, including the still-popular strawberry matcha, mango matcha, pandan matcha and ube matcha. This kaleidoscope of colour is certainly visually appealing (hence its ubiquity on the ‘Gram), but the flavour pairings have proven to be a driving force behind the enduring popularity. The vegetal nature of matcha matches well with the nuttiness of ube, the vanilla whiffs of pandan and the sweet and aromatic mango.

Lola’s also regularly adds drink specials to its menu, with Marie always keeping a finger on the pulse when it comes to the latest trending beverage – like the Mont Blanc, which is currently available for a limited time.

“If I’m going to do a take on something, I want to do it right,” Marie tells us. “It won’t be on our permanent menu because of the fact that I respect other people’s recipes and I will give credit where it’s due.”

From day dot, Marie has been open to customer feedback, giving credit to the input of the community for helping guide and shape the Lola’s offering.

“We got a lot of help from the community – that’s where people’s requests started coming in,” says Marie. “I think it was great to play around with those requests because it was like a team effort and someone’s weird drink order became our main drinks.”