Two local Kiama businesses, Deer Willow and The Farmers Table, took home trophies at the recent Illawarra and South Coast Local Business Awards, held at The Fraternity Club in Wollongong.

Deer Willow won the award for Most Outstanding Specialised Retail Business, while the Farmer’s Table won the award for Most Outstanding Best Café.

There was a mystery shopper element to the competition to see how each business represented themselves over the phone, online and in person.

The award was a fantastic way for the new owners of Deer Willow to cap their first year in charge - Julia Davidson, Caroline Villamarin and Amy Cockshutt.

“We’ve had some really good year-on-year growth,” Julia said.

“We’ve all come from corporate backgrounds - I’m from marketing, Amy was in corporate operations and Caroline’s been in retail and fashion. Between us we thought we had a really good mix of skills to operate the shop.

“It’s been wonderful, the community has really rallied behind us. It’s been a big change going from those careers into retail.

“We’ve been very grateful for the customers supporting a local business.

“We were thrilled to win the award. It’s been a lot of hard work, late hours and we’re all managing juggling children and school.”

The Farmer’s Table crew are all smiles after winning their award. 

The luxe lifestyle store on Manning Street has been running for 12 years, offering fashion, home and living, clothing and a range of products with the new owners revamping the range on offer.

“Kiama locals love it. There’s a lot of local customers and then we get a lot of visitors who frequent Kiama regularly who often tell us that it’s their favourite shop to visit,” Julia added.

“We’ve brought in 26 new brands to fill some gaps in the retail mix which have been very popular.

“It was a successful business model so we were keen to keep that going - it would be foolish to move far away from that. It’s been interesting to see what works and what doesn’t.”

The Farmer’s Table, situated in the Collins Street historic terraces, is a much newer venture and owner Alan Smith was blown away by their cafe beating out a long list of established venues in the region to take home the award.