Why the café culture suits Miles and his wife Monique

It’s a Sunday lunchtime in the school holidays and the sun is shining. The Jetty Café is teeming with customers and in the kitchen Miles Harrison is preparing endless cups of coffee.

He arrived in Jurien Bay 30 years ago with his wife Monique and now says he’d never want to leave.

“I came here by accident really. I was a naughty boy, I was living in Perth and getting into all sorts of trouble so my Dad found a job for me at the town’s pub, now the Jurien Bay Hotel, and just sent me here.”

Miles says initially it was a bit of a shock to the system. He didn’t last that long at the pub and became a cray fisherman, but seven years ago he noticed the Jetty Café, right next door to the beach was for sale, and he snapped it up.

“When I first started this café, business was slow, but then they built the main road through to Jurien Bay and everything just took off. Let’s just say it was $300,000 of money well spent,” he chuckles.

“Every year 60,000 people come through these doors, so if you’re a people person like me it’s great.”

“When I’m not working, I like to chill and relax. I still fish and when I’m not doing that, you’ll find me on the golf course. Yeah life is good, you won’t find me ever leaving this place.”

Jurien Bay is a real, honest destination. It is a place for those who want to put down the mobile and take a break from city life. Those who just want to do little or nothing for a while. To read a book, to fish off a jetty, to pay a cheeky visit to the local or to just sit and look at the blue, blue waves roll in.  When you’re in Jurien Bay, time is not measured in hours or minutes, but in moments.