Soul Sisters cafe at Longwarry has comforting food, warm hospitality and family at its heart.
Annie van der Heyden and Mel Browney, who are two of four sisters, bought the cafe in September 2016.
“We did extensive renovations for 3 weeks with the help of our family and friends and then opened our cafe on October 24th,” explained Annie.
The sisters had previously worked at Box Hill Hospital (Annie for 18 years and Mel for 9) in the catering sector running the cafeteria and providing patient meals.
“We have lived in Longwarry our whole lives and when the local cafe came up for sale, we just knew it was our dream coming true,” said Mel.
The previous owners had lived on the premises so the sisters embarked on extensive renovations to transform the space into their dream cafe.
“We had floors to rip up and re do, a bathroom to turn into a pantry, bedrooms to turn into store rooms and the lounge room turned into another dining room and the floor filled with concrete. All completed in 3 weeks,” said Annie.
Over the years the sisters grew with the business changing the menu as they learned what customers liked and wanted.
Their hard work paid off with the cafe winning the Baw Baw Shire People’s Choice Award for the last 2 consecutive years.
Soul Sisters has become famous for its loaded milkshakes in flavours like Ballistic Bubblegum, Choc Mint Madness, Maltesers Mayhem and Radical Rainbow to name a few.
The sisters believe in giving back to the local community and donate to many local sporting clubs, schools and charities.
Two years ago Soul Sisters hosted a Parma For A Farmer event raising $2000 for drought relief.
Soul Sisters Cafe is at 9 Mackey Street, Longwarry. Phone 5629 9626.
