It was the big, wide windows trimmed with lolly-coloured glass that lured retired chef Cherie Bevan into Alstonville, where she now runs her award-winning bakery, HOME.

The 100-year-old building was originally an auction house and bank, but as soon as she saw the old place, Cherie imagined windows filled with plump cakes and sumptuous slices, greeting visitors as they drove into town.

HOME Alstonville has become one of the Northern Rivers’ great regional success stories.  A multiple business award winner, including several honours for Outstanding Visitor Experience, the business has helped put the Plateau on the map as a foodie destination.

When Cherie first spotted the building, she was “semi-retired”, and would never have guessed she was on the cusp of creating one of the region’s most celebrated businesses.

Originally from New Zealand, Cherie had spent two decades owning and running cafes and bakeries in Sydney’s gentrified inner-east, Bondi and Paddington, and later Bellevue Hill, but she was also burnt out.

At the tail end of the pandemic, Cherie and her partner bought a property without seeing it in Tuckombil and fled Sydney to garden in 2022. She knew the Northern Rivers from family holidays, when she was married with a tiny daughter.

She was hoping to find a part-time job, but then Cherie saw the old grand shop on 71 Main Street.

“I thought that’s a fabulous looking shop … but I was adamant I was never going to open another shop,” Cherie explained.

“It was a clothing store, and I’d visit with girlfriends and walk around this shop with those two magnificent windows, and I’d say this would be an incredible food stall.

“It reminded me of when I was little and the old home cookeries in New Zealand where you’d look through the window. I remember always going to the home cookeries with Nanna, and you looked through the window because everything was displayed in the windows, and you’d be allowed to pick your treat from the window.”

Cherie Bevan on the floor of her bakery.

Cherie has also owned a homeware business.

When the for-lease sign appeared in the window, Cherie knew it was destiny.

Today the windows of the Home bakery are overflowing with pink meringues,  banana salted caramel, brown butter friands, passionfruit vanilla slice, crispy cornflake brownies, ginger crunch, raspberry mousse – too many delectables to name. The choice of treats and the colonial store invite nostalgia.

“It triggers a lot of memories. I’ve had customers walk in here and burst into tears because it’s taken them back to somewhere,” Cherie said. “I hear so many stories about, ‘Oh my mother’ or ‘my grandmother’.”

HOME not only offers comfort food, but is a comforting trip to the past, in an uncertain world of new wars and the menace of climate change.

Cherie says HOME is her favourite shop in a career spanning 40 years, and Alstonville her favourite community. The business employs 20 locals.

A self-made woman, Cherie left school at 14 to work in the kitchen of a food shop, but she knew she had landed in the right place.

At 15, she started her chef’s apprenticeship and was qualified by 19 years of age. She moved to Australia from New Zealand in her mid-twenties, and opened her first shop at Bondi Beach when she was 25 – Cherie was now married with a small child – then opened a second business in Paddington.

She went on to open a deli-café in Bellevue Hills, and a homeware store next door – her flair for furnishings and ornamentations is everywhere in HOME. Next came a cookbook, The Cook and Baker, but she had one desire she was yet to sate – a business specialising in cakes and slices.

“I didn’t train in pastry, but I’ve always had a love of pastry, and my grandmother was an extraordinary baker, and so we always came home to home-baked goods in the cake tins; they were always full of beautiful old-fashioned slices and biscuits,” she said.

At HOME, Cherie has finally satisfied her craving to bake sweets, and with her team of pastrycooks, she also makes New Zealand specialities like Sally Lunn buns, ginger crunch and Afghans. HOME also sells a long list of savoury dishes, including focaccias and the Kiwi beef and cheese pie.

Now aged 58, divorced and repartnered, Cherie says HOME is the first business she has operated on her own without a husband or business parther – a key lesson she has learnt over 40 years in the industry is to trust her own decisions.

“Moving to making my own decisions, not being answerable to anyone and having full control has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and I think it’s something I needed to do for myself,” she said.

HOME has been featured in the Home Beautiful and Home to Love magazines, and customers now regularly arrive from the Gold Coast and Brisbane. Cherie is still surprised by the scale of her business’s success.

Another key learning for Cherie has been how to manage staff well.

“You take on many different roles as an employer and can end up feeling like a therapist and a mother, and then you also have to always be on top of the financials,” she said.

Cherie is also an advocate of old-school customer service.

“I’m quite top-heavy out front of shop, but I love the way the staff here address customers correctly. Can I help you, sir, and can I help you, ma’am? They take things to the car for people and open the door for them.

“If they’re elderly, we will look after them. Customers are the absolute everything.”

Cherie is the guest speaker at the Alstonville Wollongbar Chamber of Commerce Launch Event at the Alstonville Plateau Bowls and Sports Club on Saturday night. The event is now sold out.

Story and photos by Christine Tondorf