Style: August 07, 2020

24 Style | Feature
You won’t find a coffee machine at Sue Gidden’s café
and restaurant tucked away in the countryside. Though
it raised a few eyebrows and her family tried to talk her out
of it, Sue knew what she wanted to create in her foodie
Springston sanctuary: a place where people could sit and let
their senses be charmed. And there was certainly no place
for a rude machine spouting steam and disrupting that peace.
“I do live by my own rules,” she laughs. But that is why
her café, Memorys, works so well: because she doesn’t
conform to what ‘ought’ to be in eateries.
And yes, you can still get a cup of coffee, but Sue wants
to make sure you only get the best. That means beautiful
French press and drip coffee, created from what she
considers to be the finest beans. She pays a bit extra to
make sure it is so. Because for this creator and collector of
memories, every person must depart with a little bit of that
special magic she has created in her Springston sanctuary.
Sue has always found beauty in what people no longer
want; a “magpie”, she grins.
And that is no more so than when she and her husband
Chris stumbled upon an overgrown property in Springston
12 years ago.
“The poor land agent was ready to shoot the gap. But we
promised we wouldn’t be long. We walked in through the
Labour of love
back entrance and there was an accumulation of debris. We
did a wander and the brains started whirring. We looked at
each other and said, ‘Bugger’.”
The property had snared its way into their hearts. Fortyfive
years earlier Sue had worked in hospitality and had
wanted to open her own place. But with family and life,
the timing just wasn’t right. But it looks like this property
was winking at them, telling them that now was the time.
Though they gave it a good nudge to convince themselves
otherwise.
“I suppose most people would say, ‘Walk away, don’t be
stupid.’ We went back four times to convince ourselves not
to take the step, but each time we felt more enthusiastic,”
she says.
She chuckles when she remembers the reactions of their
three daughters as they looked at the property.
“They stood with their mouths open,” she says.
It took seven and a half years for Sue and Chris to clear,
gut and renovate the property. Sue at the time was working
as a homestay coordinator at Lincoln High School, while
Chris was an engineer.
The property was a plant nursery and had a house and
three concrete block structures, two of which Sue suspects
were potting sheds. The third had a small kitchenette, toilet
ABOVE: Sue Gidden’s Springston café, Memorys, was created over 12 years. OPPOSITE CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Thoughtful mementos
add to the traditional style of the restaurant; The Boardroom’s private dining caters for 6–12 people; The Gallery Room is rich with
wooden interiors; There are all sorts of thoughtful details; Sue cooks “food from the heart to feed the soul”.