After a chance breakdown in Coen several years ago, Sara Watkins and Steve Ramsay have fallen in love with the community and established Coen Mechanical and their latest venture, the Little Bush Pantry. Photo: Cape York Weekly.
While many people couldn’t wait to get out of a town after experiencing it for the first time due to a vehicle breakdown, one couple has transformed their love for Coen into a new business venture the whole community has embraced.
Steve Ramsay and Sara Watkins are well-known faces in the central Cape York community after running Coen Mechanical for several years, and have recently celebrated the opening of their new store, the Little Bush Pantry.
The shop is located next to Coen Mechanical on Regent Street and Ms Watkins said they had identified the need to expand the retail and service offerings in the community for both locals and seasonal visitors.
“I think initially, when we broke down in town, there wasn’t a mechanic, and we saw the need for it then, and having spent the last couple of years here, we kept seeing an increase in need of the ability to have a bit of variety in shopping and a bit of variety in fuel,” she said.
In addition to boasting an extensive range of supermarket products, fruit and vegetables, and Ampol fuel, the Little Bush Pantry offers an online option for click and collect shoppers, the State Government’s 20 per cent remote freight subsidy on essential items, and a growing offering of artwork and products designed by Coen creatives and entrepreneurs.
Ms Watkins said the couple’s decision to provide social enterprise funding for local artists and small business start-up support, as well as providing a new option for employment and workplace skill development, had been well received by the Coen community.
“There are a lot of enthusiastic people in this town, and they’re very creative, but they don’t have a platform they can stand on to sell their products, so, we’ve already started helping with that,” she explained.
“We’ve also started to do kind of small business funding.; there’s an individual that we have, she has a small business loan with us, which means she’s able to purchase the equipment she needs to then create more of a variety of the stock that she has for sale in the shop.
“It means we’ll be able to create Coen branded merchandise as well, so, that’ll all be likely made in Coen, and we’ll get some additional artists on board as well.”
With Coen Mechanical offering a full range of services, including mechanical repairs, windscreens, roadworthy certificates and air-conditioning, Mr Ramsay said the business had proved a holiday saver for a growing number of tourists whose vehicles had succumbed to the Peninsula Developmental Road on their Cape York adventure.
“We’re pretty much saving a lot of people’s holidays,” he said.
“They spend a lot of time and a lot of money coming up here; if they get to Coen as the first stop and their vehicle’s already broken, it can take a week or so to get a tow truck, so the reaction from people we’re repairing is that they love the service, and they really feel there’s a need for us here as well.”
The Coen Mechanical workshop offers a full range of services for locals and visitors including repairs, windscreens, roadworthy certificates and air-conditioning. Photo: Cape York Weekly.
