The owners of Perth’s popular Surfing Lizard café have signed a five-year lease to operate a new cafe at Secret Harbour Surf Life Saving Club. The new café will be named the Surfing Mermaid and will serve coffee, breakfast and lunch.
The surf club’s cafe had been vacant for five years before Surfing Lizard’s operators Tam and Ngan Tran agreed to the new lease recently with SLSC president Rick Lowe and vice president Brendan Privilege. The couple currently operate a popular cafe at Coogee SLSC.
The space had been designed to capture the traffic of public beachgoers and club members when the new clubhouse was built in 2015 but suffered setbacks from multiple potential vendors pulling away from the opportunity, citing cost of fit-out, slow winter trade and pandemic downturn concerns.
The lease announcement followed an official contract signing at the club where Club president Rick Lowe, vice-president Brendan Privilege and vendors, Tam and Ngan Tran, confirmed their five-year lease for the space, cementing a new casual dining future for the community of Secret Harbour.
“Having an operational café means so much, not only to our members, but also the local community,” said Rick. “The café will be well visited by Nipper families looking for a bite to eat after a Nippers Sunday session, but also by surf lovers who have been deprived for some time of a place to grab a coffee and a snack after a visit to our beach. We’re pleased this community asset can now be functional and provide a much-desired dining option for the community.”
“I chose Secret Harbour Surf Lifesaving Club for its excellent location. It is so close to a great surfing beach with plenty of parking and a growing residential area. Now that we have signed the contract, we can start the planning permit process and then start fitting it out. I hope to have it ready for opening sometime during this summer season” said Tam.
“We welcome families, coffee lovers and also dog lovers, who can bring their furry friend to the café if on a lead” added Tam.
The husband-and-wife duo will spend the next six months fitting out the space with contractors already lined up to complete the work in time for the peak of summer.
Called ‘The Surfing Mermaid’, the café will serve tasty snacks, Asian style and contemporary meals for breakfast, brunch, and lunch.
The surf club at Secret Harbour consists of two parts with a single storey storage area, toilets, kitchen and club rooms and a three-storey function area, the café and sun deck which was completed in 2015.
