Mother's Day is around the corner and Eden café Florabel has planned a high tea to help make the occasion special this year.
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Founder and owner Sheri McEvoy opened the successful business in March 2021, named Florabel after her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, a tribute to the feminine family name handed down through generations.
Sheri is passionate about honouring the important role of women in her own life, proudly recognising the line of creative women she descended from.
"My mother was a brilliant fashion designer that no-one has ever heard of, and my grandmother was a creative chef at the prestigious Metropole Hotel in Sydney in the 1930's," Sheri said.
"Both had unique talent and gave up careers for love, romance and children. Every family has women who have done that, often continuing to work hard at their chosen professions while juggling the responsibilities of children and partners simultaneously."
Sheri said she felt relentless domestic roles often preclude women from the kind of accolades their compatriots not saddled with such constraints were able to pursue to great heights.
"Few mothers would forego the joys of motherhood and childrearing for transient success though, and so the cycle continues," she said.
Following two years of COVID hampering events and occasions of all kinds, Florabel staff plan to use Mother's Day - Sunday, May 8 - as an opportunity to thank mothers for all they have done, offering families a special high tea brunch or lunch, with two sittings available for bookings and champagne chilled and ready to toast.
"The isolations of COVID have made it really hard, but this year we can go 'all out' and let mothers know how much we love them and how wonderful they are," Sheri said
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Sheri's memory of her mother Florabel in the 1950s encompasses well the sacrifice and dedication so many mothers make.
"She trudged home at dusk down the street from the bus with blistered feet in the high heels she was obliged to wear in her fashion role; after standing all day at the design table of the fashion house where she worked calculating wonderfully fitting graded patterns or cutting a 10cm high 'lay' of fabric," Sheri said.
"She carried heavy bags of groceries and arrived home to bathe, cook, feed and bed children, then stood until midnight at the laundry copper with a fire underneath, perspiring while she stirred the washing with a stick and lifted heavy wet sheets into the wringer, before lifting to hang on the Hills Hoist.
"She was a wonderful mother and much loved but not always appreciated, so we will be toasting her and all the other mothers in the same boat at Florabel on Mother's Day," Sheri said.
Also to be celebrated was that the team at Florabel, many working mothers themselves, have been operating for over a year, with enthusiastic reviews on Tripadvisor, which Sheri says was a great credit to the team and their resilience.
Bookings can be made for Florabel's Mother's Day high tea for one of the two sittings for brunch or lunch, at 10am-12pm or 12.30-2.30pm. The cost is $25 per person, or $35 for those who wish to enjoy a glass of sparkling wine.
Indoor and outdoor seating will be available, bookings are essential: 0439 511 544.
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Leah Szanto
Regional journalist covering the Far South Coast of NSW.
Regional journalist covering the Far South Coast of NSW.
