About

Hey! This is us! A family of 4 and lovers of all good food, wine, coffee, people, and succulents!

(Ok that last one is just me…)

We moved from Sydney to the Hunter over 10 years ago. We were newlyweds and both in the hospitality & tourism industry. We loved fine dining and one of the first places we came across was Muse, that was enough to keep us here!

We set out on our adventure in hospitality and have run cafes for the past 10 years. We still run our little baby Mr O in Cessnock and it is exactly what dreams are made of. It is beautifully presented food and coffee that loves you back!

We would not be telling the truth if we said it was easy for us to start a family, it wasn’t. But in 2019 we were blessed with our beautiful baby boy and our dream continued. He is everything to us!

After being on maternity leave and spending so much time with our first precious Bub, Hey Hunter was born…

It is amazing just how many people you meet in a café! It’s like having a phone book but with faces and coffee orders next to each name. Somehow at dinner, my husband and I would be sitting down discussing who we had met and often I could not remember their name but I would know their order. The conversation was skim latte extra hot guy, almond cap guy, soy hot chocolate lady and so on….

These orders soon became good family and friends of ours.

Ones that we admire for the challenges they faced running a small business in a regional area.

Ones that woke you up early to get to a gym class.

Ones that cried with you when you were feeling overwhelmed.

Ones that danced and celebrated all your small wins with you.

Ones that always gave you another reason to laugh.

There was always wine, in fact I rarely saw the same bottle twice. I was amazed at just how good these smaller boutique wineries were and I had no idea that they even existed! I had begun developing a love for Shiraz and just couldn’t wait until the reds came out.

The truth is, I had never seen them in anything that was marketed and our family and friends that came from Sydney to visit the Hunter, always had the same places on their list to go only to restock what they had tried and loved.

I wanted to tell everyone about that great wine I just had! I wanted to show everyone where I just found the honey, olives, chocolate, etc. I wanted everyone to meet the people we just met!

I got soooooo many messages and phone calls that basically said:

‘We’re coming to the hunter, tell us what to do and where to go!’

I had lists, mental lists, favourite lists, lists I put away and never found, and yet, every response, I rewrote this list. It was always similar, but I continued to add and I was especially excited by what was new.

And this was the foundation…..Let’s get some seriously good products and wine exclusively from all different small family businesses in the Hunter and put them in one box for people to see. Lets share a piece of what we love about our home with the surrounding areas.

We never, ever dreamed that the Hunter Valley would be our forever home but here we are, and it will always have a special place in our hearts.

The people that make up this community are nothing short of amazing! We are so happy to have met some incredibly talented people and can’t wait to share their success, stories, and products with you all.

Much love,

Josie, Gerald, Matteo and Christian