Beach classic gets a kick-start

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Far from swanning about, Brad Seymour is focused on an exciting new venture, writes Keeli Cambourne.

BRAD SEYMOUR is a team player. He played for the Sydney Swans as one of its star defenders.

In his latest role as a radio and television commentator, he's also a member of a well-oiled machine.

He is applying that same all-hands-on-deck philosophy to running the Hyams Beach Cafe , nestled above the pristine white sands of Jervis Bay.

Seymour, who took on the cafe after seeing it advertised on the internet, has undertaken a transformation of the once-sleepy general store and takeaway.

"I'd been talking to [my wife] Mel about doing something like this. I had been retired for five years. I had always harboured an ambition to have a cafe, I don't why," he says.

"We used to live in Tamarama and when my son, Jonah, was born we used to spend every day in some sort of cafe. And when we found this I liked the idea of putting my handprint on it."

Before being discovered by Sydney escapees, Hyams Beach was a sleepy coastal village, albeit on one of the most pristine stretches of coastline on Australia's eastern seaboard. The general store catered for the handful of locals who needed everyday essentials in between shopping trips to Vincentia or Nowra.

Hamburgers were about as adventurous as the menu went and for years that is all the holidaymakers really wanted, too.

But the demographics of Hyams have changed in the past decade and with it the tastes of the new locals who now call the village home, let alone the thousands of Sydneysiders who flock there from September to May.

"I'm not sure what the cafe was really like before we took it over but we saw it and liked it and thought it needed to be tidied up here and there to start with."

That tidying up has been more than a lick of paint and a few new signs. The couple added an outside deck and the cafe now stocks Simon Johnson and Maggie Beer gourmet foods as well as bread and milk.

But the most dramatic change was to the menu, which was totally reinvented.

"I had no experience in running a cafe or a restaurant but my attitude has always been roll up your sleeves, put your head down and have a crack at it.

"We had a lot of changes in staff and we started to put the pieces together to form the big picture."

One of those changes was hiring young local chef Doug Innes-Will, who impressed Seymour with his confidence and entrepreneurship. Innes-Will approached Seymour with his vision for the cafe and restaurant.

Part of Seymour's vision, which is shared by Innes-Will, is to showcase the local produce, creating dishes with ingredients such as mushrooms from Mittagong, meats from Bowral and fruit and vegetables from Nowra.

Now the menu boasts dishes such as citrus-cured salmon salad and braised duck curry. And the hamburgers haven't been forgotten - they've just been given a bit of a makeover.

"Essentially I think the South Coast is still untouched in that way," Seymour says.

He is not the unseen partner. Every weekend before the summer onslaught and then every day throughout December and January, he's behind the coffee machine, waiting tables and being host.

"I did do a barista course but you learn more on the job . . . when you make as much coffee as I do over the summer you learn what is good and bad," he says.

"I think a lot of football followers that come through the front door want to talk footy with me and that's great. I think that is a positive thing because it gives my customers and me an interaction and a way to communicate."

And listening to the locals has been integral to being accepted in the village, says Seymour.
"In the end, what I think is wrong or right doesn't matter," he says. "I am open to hearing what the locals want. The store and cafe is the heart and soul of the village."

The Hyams Beach Cafe is open for breakfast and lunch daily and for dinner some nights from January to March.