Yakka brings pub charm and vinyl records to Port Kembla

Alongside partner and fellow pub-enthusiast Chelsea Smith, the pair have taken everything they love about pub charm and channelled it into their eclectic Port Kembla shopfront, stocking craft beer and wine, vinyl records and local deli items.

"I've spent all my life travelling and camping around Australia with my family, and so we love outback pubs, and the warmth they give - we wanted to emulate that," Mr Sherley said.

Ms Smith said their first dates were spent hunting down the best old pubs, so the love was something shared, and it just made sense to bring that to their own space.

Even the name "Yakka" is an ode to regional Australia, and the shop's marlin logo takes inspiration from small town tourism in the 80's.

"We wanted a real 'Australiana' feel to everything - Yakka has that," Mr Sherley said.

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After Yakka's official opening in Port Kembla on October 29, Ms Smith and Mr Sherley said people came down from all over Wollongong, Sydney and beyond to support them in their first week in business.

Combining vinyl records, beer and wine, and local produce brings together the pair's background working in the arts industry with their passion for good food and alcohol.

"Adding them together was a unique concept that we hadn't heard of or seen, and when we put it out online, people were really receptive to it and excited," Mr Sherley said.

The space is filled with the mementos from the pair's travels, together and with their own families, from a cowhide Australia picked up on a trip through Brunwsick Heads to the shot glasses Mr Sherley collected as a kid.

"It's just become a staple part of the shop now, which is cool," Ms Smith said.

They said joining the businesses on Port Kembla's Wentworth Street, who are putting so much love and energy into revitalising the area, was a privilege.

After finding no luck in the Wollongong rental market, the pair moved to Port Kembla from Fairy Meadow in 2021, and fell in love with the area and it's potential.

"After living here, we wanted to see [Wentworth] street do well," Ms Smith said.

"Obviously there are still a lot of empty shop fronts, but I think there is so much potential here."

"We're excited to be a part of that now."

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Ms Smith and Mr Sherley have chosen craft beers and natural wines, from many of the regions they've visited on their travels through Australia.

"The wines, we are focusing on Australian producers, natural, minimal intervention wine - stuff you wouldn't find in Dan Murphy's," Ms Smith said.

Many of the deli items are local, from a trout smoked by Harley Johns in Fairy Meadow, to South Coast Kimchi made by a woman who "lives just around the corner".