New Depot Hill store ‘swamped’ with customers for first day
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NEW LIFE has been breathed into the old Swamp Store at Depot Hill as the doors opened this week to customers for the first time in a few years.
What started out as a project three years ago has now become a reality for owners Connie Patterson and Tom Prinsen, thanks to COVID-19.
While COVID-19 has hit a lot of businesses hard and forced many to close up shop, the husband and wife made it work in their favour.
Connie and Tom have owned tapas bar and restaurant and venue location Kanangra Heights at Tanby for seven years and saw it become restricted when COVID-19 hit.
They recently sold the Kanangra Heights business, to new owners who have kept it open.
The couple had bought the Wood St property in mid-2017 with plans to one day do it up.
“We liked it because it is an old shop, the oldness of it appealed to us and we got it at a good price,” Connie said.
The shop was quite derelict when they bought it and needed a lot of work to bring it back up to a modern and appealing standard.
“At first we thought ‘what have we done’ and where do you begin to get something like this going again,” Connie said.
Over the years, the couple has carried out some renovations but now without Kanangra, it is the perfect opportunity to get it done.
“We had time to do it, we had no excuses,” Connie said.
With a paint job, some plastering and many more hours of works, the couple opened to the public for the first time this week.
Monday was the first day of trade and they were quite literally “swamped” for the dinner run.
“Very supportive, really excited there is a shop here, they have all filed through for a sticky beak to see what we have done,” Connie said of the crowd.
The store is predominantly takeaway food with meals cooked on site and pies, sweets and bread from Gracemere Bakery.
The menu even includes a crocodile mince burger, with meat supplied from Koorana Crocodile Farm.
The store is in the perfect position for all the locals along with the tradies around the area doing hail-damage repairs and Hastings and Aurizon workers.
They also have plans to stock a small range of products along the lines of bread, milk, flour and sugar.
They are also cooking meals for the pub down the road.
The store is known among the old locals “the swampies” as Archy Lamb’s shop, then Lee’s before it changed to The Swamp Store.
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SWAMP STORE
29 Wood St, Depot Hill
Takeaway food from fish and chips, burgers including a crocodile mince burger and beef brisket in damper burger, hot box snacks, coffees and assorted sweets
Phone 49112625
