The recently opened Cypress Pine Cafe run by Celia Canham and mother, Kim, not only boasts a fresh new experience serving up nutritious food, but is empowering young people by creating employment opportunities.

Why did you decide to open a café in Baradine?

We felt that since the cafe closed some months ago, Baradine was missing out on some specific services and we wanted to do something to help the local economy during these uncertain times.

We believe that if the café had remained closed for any longer it never would have been reopened, because it would no longer have met Council regulations. 

We ran Taste Buds in Coonabarabran very successfully for three and a half years and now want to boost business in Baradine.

What makes your business unique?

We like to do things differently and saw the need to provide fresh fruit and vegetables, a meals on wheels delivery service, pre-cooked take-away meals, fresh salads and juices, as well as convenient and traditional take-away food.

Wednesday is market day, with weekly supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables arriving straight from the Sydney markets. We are connecting to local suppliers and will have fresh milk and bread from the Coonabarabran Bakery and meat packs provided by local butchers.

But we also want to support local artists by making the Cypress Pine Café a hub where you can find creative crafts and bric-a-brac for sale.

How are you creating employment opportunities?

Our focus is on youth employment and training young people how to operate a business. We are employing four junior and five adult staff. From previous business experience, we know how important it is for kids to acquire good work ethics from the start and young people have the energy to generate great enthusiasm.

We knew we had to step up to be at the forefront of job creation if we wanted to develop enterprise opportunities for our local youth, and involvement in a business venture like this can help to give young people a boost in confidence and self- esteem.

What can customers expect at the Cypress Pine Café?

Establishing ways to meet community needs will be an evolving process. We can cater for all dietary requirements, including special diets - and the menu will change daily.

Each week we will have a menu for pre-made meals available for pickup; we can cater for single or family size orders and we can also deliver to the door.

The food focus is on fresh, tasty and home- baked. Business hours will be seasonal and we plan to start earlier during harvest to cater for workers. Current COVID regulations give us the opportunity to develop our take-away service; everything from the café is served with love.

What are your plans for the future?

We get asked a lot about the old Bugaldie Store and we are still planning to open it once we have the approvals from Council. In the meantime, this Baradine business opportunity came up.

We are working with Warrumbungle Community Care and Home Care to provide pre-made meals for delivery to local residents. We have the food sources and we want to deliver - we will make it all happen.