The Crooked Carrot

The story of the Crooked Carrot really begins with a straight carrot. Well, many straight carrots, for that’s one of the vegetables the Castros produce on their local farm. They take pride in their carrots, which are always brilliantly orange, brimming with nutrition—and straight as an arrow.

History

Joe Castro bought the farm in Myalup back in 1990. His parents were farmers  down Donnybrook way so he had a great background in how to run a commercial farm. He married Sonia, whose parents were farmers in Slovenia who operated a 5-acre market garden after migrating to Perth.​

Things were going well in the farming business, so in 1996, the Castro’s purchased an adjacent property from the Marshalls, which just happened to be raising emus and had a small café near the highway. The Castros agreed to lease the famous Myalup road stop to the Marshall family, who continued to run it for two decades, supplying local residents and travellers with their quintessentially Aussie emu pies, along with some local produce and fresh-squeezed orange juice straight from the orchards in nearby Harvey.​

Once the lease expired in June 2015, the Castros didn’t really have a clue what to do with the roadside effigy, until Sonia started dreaming up an idea for a small café. A chance meeting with Kirk Foster, who would become the first café manager, and a chef recommendation from friends, drove the project from dream to reality. Even with nearby roadhouses at Settler’s and Myalup, the new team decided to give it a crack and do something uniquely different. They brainstormed ideas, originally coming up with a veggie shop café theme, that would eventually evolve into its present day café function venue.​

With her gift for design and a zesty—ok, let’s call it crooked—creative streak, Sonia transformed the simple farm-stand into a small café, which opened its doors in 2015. An avid vintage collector, she spruced up the café interior with some pretty quirky bits and pieces from her shed full of old things: tractor seats became bar stools, rusty buckets served as bathroom sinks, watering cans became overhead lighting. She enlisted Joe and a few farmhands to haul their collection of old farm tractors and line them up along the back fence where they stood as a  picturesque foreground to their adjacent fields.​

For locals, it didn’t take long for the highway café to gain a robust notoriety—the car park always seemed full and tourist buses soon began arriving. They could sense the dynamism building around the café—every week new features: a bush tucker garden, outdoor tables and chairs with a view towards the soaring gum trees and rolling farm fields, and so on. Sonia’s whimsical market of locally grown produce, including a collection of quality conserves and bushfood products, evolved and this energy seemed to just keep attracting more. It was nice to have the ‘buzz’ back in Myalup.​

For Sonia, it didn’t take long for the café to take on a life of its own. Sure, she managed the fledgling business, along with Kirk, the original manager, and later, Chef Kieran, who cooked up innovative ‘bush tucker’ along with sumptuous adaptations of some old Aussie favorites. But the ideas just didn’t stop coming to Sonia for what they could do to transform the sprawling three-acre property into something with a ‘point of difference’. All she had to do was keep up with the inspiration—and manage a growing staff of employees and contractors. Life became a bit busy.​

Key Points

The Crooked Carrot is a café on the Forrest Highway between Mandurah and Bunbury serving fabulous coffee, amazing slices, cakes and sweet treats as well as freshly cooked breakfast and lunch. The café offers casual dining in a setting surrounded by farmland with an enormous nature playground and lawned areas, vintage tractors, vintage trucks, two vintage Melbourne trams and even an aeroplane on display in the gardens.

The café is a fabulous stop when travelling from Perth to the South West and is the perfect halfway point for families to meet especially if travelling with kids or pets.

The café boasts an amazing range of sweet treats made in-house daily with a wide range of gluten free trets on offer too.

The café stocks gourmet local products such as jams, pickles, honey, dried fruit, hand made local pottery mugs to name a few.

The café has an in house florist with beautiful fresh flowers from our flower fridge available daily, a wide range of homewares and gifts, pots and plants.

The café offers beautiful areas to host after hours special functions such as weddings, engagement parties and special birthdays and a great place to host children’s birthday parties.