General News
13 November, 2024
The Old Bank Cafe closes
The Old Bank Café closed its doors on Sunday, November 10.
“We really want to thank the community for the support they’ve given us,” said co-proprietor Liz White. “It’s overwhelming, the support we’ve had.
“It was a very hard decision to make, but health comes first. We know from experience chemotherapy is a long haul.
“We knew we couldn’t continue running The Old Bank at the same time as treatment but still really struggled to make the decision to close.”
Getting the café up and running has been a dream come true, and seeing so many of the Gilgandra community come together was everything we hoped for. Doug expressed that he was immensely satisfied with his role. “It’s been a great deal of fun,” he said.
“There was a steep learning curve; we had never run a café before. [We are] so grateful to the community for being tolerant of that. People have been so generous. We will miss the social side of [the Old Bank] the most.”
Both Doug and Liz expressed interest in finding someone to lease the business from them to keep the building as part of the community.
“All the renovations and hard work has been done, everything is in place,” said Liz. “Ideally, we would like to see the space being used as a café, and for the community to continue to share and enjoy the building.
“Bringing the building back into the community was a large part of what we set out to do—it’s too beautiful not to be open to the public,” Liz said.
Doug gave thanks to the many people who had supported them along the way, “particularly our staff, without whom we would never have gotten this far.
“Jenny and Leonie were invaluable, and we had a great deal of fun with our weekend staff, whose parents have much to be proud of.”
“A huge thank you to everyone, for everything. Right from the get-go, locals have been amazing,” he said.
On their last few days of opening, Doug and Liz – and the team behind them – have been overwhelmed with the kindness and understanding of our community.
