Cafe opportunity at beach with ‘world’s whitest sand’

Chris Alison, who has owned the Hyams Beach Store and Cafe for 27 years, is hanging up his hat and is wondering if a certain entrepreneurial food and beverage man is interested in buying the business.

With Justin Hemmes having just sold the a corner site at 61-63 Macleay St, Potts St — in his family for 31 years — for more than $13 million, Alison says: “I think he could afford to buy our place and he’s the one who springs to mind.

“He’s interested in different places and he appears to have the golden touch.”

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The tiny hamlet beside a strip of sand that’s now loved — residents say excessively so — for its “whitest sand in the world” has a permanent population of 112, according to the 2016 census.

Phoebe Alison at the Hyams Beach Store and Cafe (above and below).

But this can swell to thousands of holiday makers and day-trippers at peak periods.

Alison has transformed the business from one that sold milk, takeaway food and small-time groceries — “everything from spark plugs, fishing hooks and condoms” — to a trendy cafe and food outlet.

He says turnover had gone from $300,000 a year to just over $1.5 million.

Alison says while his focus is selling the goodwill for $550,000, he’d be up to selling the freehold — the shop; the newly renovated two-bedroom flat below it; and the real estate office — at the right price.

Hyams Beach is famous for its long stretch of white sand.

And there’s endless potential for someone like Hemmes.

“I’ve never discussed this with council, but we did have plans drawn up to put on another level,” Alison says.

“If you stand on our roof, the view is absolutely to die for.”

The opportunity could also suit an owner operator with extended family or a group of like-minded friends prepared to work in the cafe.

“More than a third of our turnover goes in wages,” he says.

So what next for the Alisons — Chris, wife Sue and daughter Phoebe, who has been running the cafe in recent years?

Justin Hemmes sold this site in Potts Point for more than $13 million.

“Sue and I will be 70 this year, and we had this agreement with our daughter, Phoebe: As long as she wanted to do it, she would do it,” Alison says.

“But Phoebe has been here since she was 10, on and off, and doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life doing it.”

So Mum and Dad are planning a big holiday, with Phoebe planning a new adventure.

Meanwhile, this writer, who owns a shack at Hyams Beach, will miss seeing Alison in his shop, where he and I first met in the 1990s when he used to distribute holiday rentals on a photocopied sheet.

“It was probably the most photocopied piece of paper with places to stay,” he joked.

This article from the Wentworth Courier originally appeared as “Hemmes, Justin case you’re interested: an opportunity at the whitest sand in the world”.