I love these Australian names, heading on the Fleurieu Peninsula out from Port Willunga, through Myponga to Yankalilla essentially following the Tribuke Dreaming Trail. We dropped off at Lilla’s, a café on the main road – they were closed but offered warmly to make a coffee while they prepared for the evening rush.

Such a warm out of the way welcome meant that I was not surprised to see that they had just won the Excellence in Customer Service Award, as well as becoming the overall winner of the 2009 Fleurieu Peninsula Tourism Awards.

Jim Lenzi and wife Sue had a holiday house in Yankalilla, so when Jim was made redundant from Mitsubishi Motors after 35 years, they were seduced by a new life based at their holiday house full time instead of just driving down every Friday night.

Right near their house a small café was on the market – they liked the idea of working together, used their redundancy to buy the business, and have worked 7 days a week to recharge the business and put their own stamp on it. Jim comes from Italian stock, so when he saw the disused pizza ovens out the back, he took this on as a project, and with the help of his 80 year old father Fiorello the ovens were soon fully restored and opened Saturday and Sunday nights for fabulous Wood Fired Pizza.

You can see this is a community hub – tonight the Rotary have their weekly meeting here, during the days the locals are in for coffee, and the space outside means it feels like a great place for the whole family. Definitely worth stopping….