Historic Factory Restored to Restaurant

Just past Jindyandy on the Greenwell Point Road was a ramshackle old building: holes in the walls where doors and windows used to be, roof rusted away, sheets of old tin propped up against walls.

Speculation by locals to the origins of the building were many and varied. Some said it was a jail, others claimed it was a huge house or mill, yet more said it was a dairy. They were all wrong. From as early as 1889 the building was a butter factory, Shoalhaven’s first, and at that time NSW’s largest.

“Jindyandy was at one time the biggest separating station in this state”, a December 1902 edition of the Shoalhaven’s Telegraph reported.

The Jindyandy Butter Factory closed in 1902. Then years later it reopened under the name the Fresh Food and Ice Company. It continued trading as such until November 1927 when the company ceased operations.

The building become derelict, exposed to salty corrosion of the prevailing sea breezes for almost 60 years until one day in 1988 when local builder, John Smith drove past and thought it would make a nice restaurant.

“I thought it would be good to do something with this old building”, John said. “I told people I was going to build a restaurant - they thought I was crazy!”

But the thought turned into a dream, the dream into reality.

In only a few months John and his wife Jilliane transformed the tumble-down old building into a top-class restaurant, aptly named today The Butter Factory Restaurant.

In January, 2006 Maria and Andrew purchased the restaurant. Today you will see thick timber beams, open ceiling, colonial brickwork (probably convict built) and 18 inch solid walls. The restaurant is deliciously cool in summer, and during the cooler months with open fires burning, it’s cosily warm. Set on land overlooking local dairy farms, you’ll be able to enjoy the authentically rural setting and rustic fare.