Shelly Beach is a coastal suburb of Caloundra, two km north-east of Caloundra's city centre. The beach, facing east, is between headlands, Moffat and Caloundra Heads.
Shelly Beach was the site of Caloundra's first hotel (1885) at the corner of Alfred Street and Victoria Terrace, at the south end of the beach. However, the position turned out to be some distance from Caloundra's town centre which faced the protected Kings Beach. During World War II Shelly Beach was off-limits with barbed-wire defences.
The original hotel was replaced by the Hotel Francis (1906) in Albert Street which became a well known and popular meeting place for the Caloundra community. Soon after the war, Caloundra's real estate agent, Roy Henzell, launched the Hotel Francis Estate west of the hotel. Caloundra's Catholic church was relocated to the western edge of Shelly Beach in 1963 and in 1980 a Catholic primary school was opened next door.
Shelly Beach has a corner shopping area and the Adelphi Hotel in Albert Street, and wide foreshore reserves with a walking trail. Real estate is mostly low-rise and unpretentious, few if any units, and weatherboard or fibro houses are refurbished more often than knocked over.
Shelly Beach's census populations have been:
| census date | population |
|---|---|
| 2006 | 850 |
| 2011 | 866 |
