From today, the Lismore Square is home to the largest Muffin Break franchise in Australia.

Owners Narelle and Phil Reid took over the old Michael Hill and Gadget Hospital spaces, opposite Kmart, combined them and set up Muffin Break which removed the wooden hoardings last night to reveal a massive cafe to have breakfast, lunch and of course, muffins.

It is another case of locals having a go at opening a business in Lismore and employing four other people.

Narrelle was born and raised in Lismore, the youngest of six, and attended Richmond River High. She met her husband Phil in Brisbane. They had two children, Breanna (20) and Olivia (18) with Olivia working in the business as well. The Reids also have a beef cattle farm in Bentley.

(Olivia and Phil Reid showing off their baking skills. Photo: supplied)

Both Narelle and Phil have been involved in management and Narelle has also been involved in finance so opening a retail business was the natural progression.

"We've been looking at other businesses. Bakers Delight when it was down at Central and we thought, oh, yeah, we should do that. Ah, no. Then we looked at Pizza Hut with something in Kyogle and we thought we should do that. We've just looked at different franchises."

"I've always liked Muffin Break because when we go to Tweed Heads they've got a muffin called Duffin, it's a Danish muffin, it is divine. And I just liked the concept, it's all fresh. We cook all the muffins, we cook all the frittatas and quiches and wraps and we do everything on site every day."

While the 4am starts would be daunting for most people, Narelle and Phil will take it in their stride.

"We're not afraid of hard work and it is going to be hard work. It has been until now. But yeah, we love it. We are super pumped to open today."

Phil will be doing back of house, so all the cooking, while Narelle looks after front of house.

"We went down to Sydney for two weeks training. Muffin Break give you really good structure of how to cook the product and how everything is laid out. We actually found it quite easy. Phil loves cooking at home and is always tinkering with different things."

As for Lismore Square being the largest Muffin Break in the country?

"We think there's a need for people to be able to bring in a pram or bring in a walker or be able to move around and not be sitting with someone being shoulder to shoulder. My mum's 87 and we would like to make it easy for older people to get around in the shop," Narelle explained.

Muffin Break opens at 7:30am Monday to Saturday and 10am on Sunday and closes at 5pm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday and 7:30pm on Thursday's. Sunday's hours are 10am to 4pm.

There will be four core muffins on the menu, apple & cinnamon, blueberry, choc chip and a decadent (double choc chip) then a rotation of sixteen other muffin flavours including raspberry & white chocolate and lemon & poppy seed.

On top of the muffins, there will be wraps, salads baguettes and croissants. While for breakfast, there are bacon and egg toasties and ham & cheese croissants.

"We're a grab-and-go market as well," Narelle adds, "We've got a lot of seating here, but you can grab a wrap and a coffee and go back to work or you can get your groceries and grab something to take home."

There is another local business to support as Lismore continues to rebuild.