Opening her own shop has been a dream of local foodie Abby Fairfull since she was 10 years old.
Growing up in Cootamundra where her parents ran a pub (and young Abby made Anzac slice to serve as bar snacks), she dreamed of opening a bookshop and a coffee shop.
Fast forward a few of decades (and a whole lot of life), and Abby did it—she found an empty shop, renovated the dilapidated old building, bought equipment and furniture, planned a menu, employed staff, moved in and opened her own coffee shop last week.
Abby got to where she is today in a roundabout way after beginning her working life in nursing.
When she left school, Abby’s mum had insisted she get a “real” job and, after starting out studying childcare at TAFE, she was encouraged to take up nursing.
She worked for a number of years as a registered nurse, but deep down, the idea of her shop was always at the back of her mind.
“I hung on to the belief that maybe you can make a living in a non-traditional role,” Abby said.
Initially there was the worry about being able to support a family without a steady income.
In 2019 Abby and her husband bought a former bakery which was an old building with plenty of problems but Abby could see its potential.
Renovating it was a huge job and they had to deal with regulations, red tape and Covid.
And with the building industry being so flat-out, they found it hard to get Tradies to do the work they wanted.
But the dream didn’t go away.
“Through all of that, I’d already been running my food business for about 10 years.”
Abby didn’t have any formal training, just a childhood spent cooking with her mum.
When her children were young, Abby started out small, testing things at markets and she proved to be very popular.
From there she did a few lunches and birthday cakes and it’s grown into a busy catering business.
“And even when I slowed down a bit people just kept supporting me.
“They ordered, they followed along.
“All along the community has supported me.
“And now… we’ve opened the shop.
“I had a line out the door five minutes before we opened. I still can’t quite believe it.”
Abby said she had plans of having a little opening party and inviting a few people and later have a big grand opening. However she opted for a “soft opening” last week to give her new staff a chance to find their rhythm and figure out where everything is.
“It’s a brand new building, brand new team, and a brand new boss who’s used to working solo in her home kitchen. We’ve had the coffee machine guys, the point-of-sale system guys, it’s been a lot.”
Abby said she wakes up in the middle of the night making mental lists, that’s when she does actually get some sleep!
“I’ve been told by others in the industry that I’ll never sleep again!”
Abby said she’s enjoying the separation of work at work and home at home.
“I’ve spent the last 10 years worried about food health and safety at home and packing everything away so that we could have our family time and then getting rid of all that so I could do the work stuff.
“And now I just go home and who cares if the shoes are in the hallway and who cares if dinner’s not ready?
“It’s my home. Business is at the shop. I can close the door and, kind of, switch off.”
“The past few days have been dreamy.
“People have said things like ‘This feels like something you’d see in the city’.”
It took years of faith and a whole lot of work, but now Abby’s dream has come to life.
