Lucy Fleming did not set out to run the go-to place, Love Lucy Boots, in Westbury. She just wanted people to feel like they had been invited into someone’s home.
Three years ago, Fleming opened Love Lucy Boots at 45 Williams Street, initially as a wine room. It has since grown into something more. There is a takeaway coffee operation she calls the Milk Crate Community, a Sunday wine bar, seasonal whiskey and wine evenings with local producers, and a bottle shop stocked deliberately with wines sourced directly from the vineyards. Underneath all of it runs a consistent thread: community.
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Fleming is, at heart, a people person. She knows her regulars, draws strangers into conversation, and has a knack for turning a coffee stop into a lasting connection. Ask one customer to carry a flat white to the person in the blue jumper, and suddenly two people who had never met are saying hello the next time they cross paths. It sounds simple, but it reflects a genuine and deliberate philosophy about what a local business can be. It is a philosophy rooted, in part, in her background as a social worker, a career that gave her a deep understanding of people and what they need from each other.
“Everything I’m trying to do constantly is about how do we enhance community engagement and how do we enhance social connection,” Fleming says. “I feel like post-COVID we kind of lost that a bit, but it’s starting to come back.”
“You choose the type of society we live in by where you spend your money,”
That community instinct is matched by a sharp business mind. When Fleming noticed that Westbury had foot traffic during the day but not at night, she pivoted toward takeaway coffee. When she saw that people wanted a reason to linger, she set up milk crates outside rather than tables inside, reasoning that an outdoor gathering spot creates more genuine conversation.
It has not always been easy. “Running a small business in hospitality in regional Tasmania is tough,” Fleming says plainly. “But you can either gripe about it or just get on with it.” She has chosen the latter, and the results speak for themselves.
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The business’s name followed her from Melbourne, where she signed everything off as “Love, Lucy Boots,” and when it came time to brand the venue she leaned into it, reasoning that travellers passing through a small town can always remember either Lucy or Boots. Lucy’s story took an unexpected turn when a woman came in about 18 months ago and mentioned she had grown up next door. Her aunt’s name, it turned out, was Lucy Boot! The house itself dates to 1870 and Fleming is steadily renovating it with help from her father.
Saturday mornings are the busiest. The Westbury Parkrun finishes nearby and Fleming has become the unofficial post-run destination, giving a free coffee to whoever crosses the line with the lucky number and coffee and cake to first-time volunteers.
Beyond her own four walls, Fleming is active in the Meander Valley Tourism and Business Association and is one of the more optimistic voices when it comes to Westbury’s future. She points to the Great Western Tiers distillery, the jeweller, the secondhand bookshop and the various other small operators along William Street as evidence of something genuinely distinctive already taking shape. Deloraine won silver at the Australian Tourism Awards last year, and Fleming believes Westbury is well placed to build on that momentum for this year.
“When people come through, you want them to know Westbury is somewhere worth stopping,” she says. “We’ve really got something here.”
