Meet the new owners of the iconic Brooms Head General Store

It’s been closed for more than a year, but the new owners have good news for those looking to welcome their iconic shop back.

Once the hub of the small coastal community, the Brooms Head General Store has been closed for a year, leaving locals stranded for fuel, alcohol and other general supplies.

So it was with great interest that the property, including the shop and accommodation units, was put up for sale last year.

And when the gavel fell, it was some very happy, and relieved local faces smiling with the result, buying the property for $1.265 million on Saturday.

The new owners are Nathan and Ros Brown, who have lived at nearby Taloumbi for the past 20 years.

Ros is a schoolteacher and accountant by trade, and Nathan is a well-known figure working for Tooheys and while they have each plied their trade while living here, Mr Brown said it had been a longheld dream to take on the shop.

“Thirteen years ago when Richard and Cathy Parker had it, we wanted to have a crack at it, but we just couldn’t because we had young kids,” he said.

“Now we thought the time had probably arrived, and we’ve been doing our homework. It’s been on the market for a while and we had been talking to the previous owners and doing our due diligence.

“Then the circumstances for the shop changed … and we’d been working for the last couple of years so we saw this as our opportunity to take it on.”

Mr Brown said after moving here to work with Tooheys, they had fallen in love with the area, and had said if they could find a really good business they would step out of corporate work and run the business.

“I’ll continue to work for Tooheys, and be one of the casual staff, and Ros will run the business,” he said.

Auction: 92 Ocean Road, Brooms Head

Posted by Ray White Yamba on Friday, April 16, 2021

With 10 registered bidders, and the numbers starting at $750,000, Mr Brown admitted that he had some nerves on the day.

“Big time nerves,” he laughed. “You don’t know who’s there or what’s going to happen.

“I ran through so many scenarios … and there was actively four or five bidders.

“You never know, but fortunately for us we were lucky.”

In what will be music to the ears of locals, Mr Brown said they were looking to get the shop open as soon as possible, but said it needed some extensive work.

He said they would continue to trade the shop as a general store, and bottle shop.

“We still need to spend a bit of money on it as it needs a clean up. We’ll renovate it, paint it, both the shop and the units, do upstairs and the residence and go from there,” he said.

“We don’t take the keys until the end of May and I reckon we’ve got another month’s clean-up, and whether we can trade it after that while we’re doing renovations, we’ll see.

“In my eyes the quicker the better. We want to trade it and I know the community is super keen to have their general store back.

“It’ll be as fast as physically possible.”