Top Honour for Hunter Belle Cheese
By Jem Anshaw
When discussing their recent Muswellbrook Chamber of Commerce and Industry Awards success, the owners of Hunter Belle Cheese Café are eager to acknowledge their staff’s role in the achievement.
“We’ve been here doing this for many years now and we just do what we do, and we try and do it well, but to be recognized like that is amazing,” owner Geoff Chesworth shared.
“A big thank you to all our staff because they’re the ones on the ground doing it day in day out and they’re the ones that have contributed to this award.”
The Aberdeen Street café received the Business of the Year award alongside the Tourism Award, the latter being for their efforts to do their part in bringing people to Muswellbrook.
“We’ve been promoting the Hunter and Muswellbrook for a long, long time and it’s really important that people realize that this is a tourism area, there’s so much to see here,” Tania said.
“Admittedly yes, there’s not as many wineries as they once were but there’s still plenty to do and it’s a great day out and we’ve got so much beauty around us.”
Having run the café for 13 years, Geoff and Tania admit that you can sometimes get caught up in the day-to-day and the annual Business Awards is an opportunity to step back and assess the situation.
“It makes you stop and think about where you’ve been and where you want to go. And what things that you want to implement both in the business in the future,” Geoff said.
“To me that’s the big one.”
“Then in the interview process, that’s a great time to really reflect on what we’ve done, what this business means to us and why we do it ourselves. Why are we still here? Why are we still running Hunter Belle? And why we love what we do,” Tania added.