But soon the Old Empire Tea Rooms will be no more.

Despite continuing to do a roaring trade, owner Jess Creasey has made the difficult decision to shut up shop to spend more time with his two young boys.

“We looked at our options and that was kind of the deciding factor,” Mr Creasey said.

“My wife and I chatted and we’re at a position where most of the bills were at zero and the lease was due for renewal.”

Mr Creasey looked at a number of other options to keep the business alive, including training up someone to take the reins or selling it to another operator, but both those options could have taken up to a year to implement.

He has also endured a difficult year, punctuated by staff shortages, which peaked last October.

In the space of two weeks, three of his chefs sustained a broken hand, a broken foot and acute kidney failure respectively.

“It’s been a stressful year, haven’t seen the kids barely at all,” Mr Creasey said.

“The opportunity came to bow out while I still like what I do. If I forced myself to stay for a year or two years, I might resent coming to work and I don’t want that.”

Mr Creasey said he would miss chatting to customers, the good friends he’d made in the three years he’d been running Old Empire Tea Rooms and the fantastic memories.

But he hasn’t ruled out returning to Wagga’s hospitality scene, once his two boys, aged two and four, are a little older.

As for what the future has in store for the Old Empire Team Rooms’ current premises, the shop’s landlord has reportedly fielded plenty of interest from new operators about opening a new food and beverage outlet on the site.

Normal service at Old Empire Tea Rooms will continue until Sunday. Following that, coffee service, along with a garage sale, will continue for an extra week.