My husband and I have recently purchased the Black Cat Truffle business which is a property comprising 1,000 truffle-producing oak trees, a licensed cafe and self-contained accommodation for four people.  We have moved to Wattle Flat from Melbourne having previously had no experience in agriculture nor hospitality ... but we're up for the challenge and very very excited about our new adventure.  We're very keen to embrace and hopefully optimise the business opportunities afforded by engagement in the Ballarat/Creswick area and to get to know, and network within, the local world of commerce.  The current Black Cat Truffles business (which runs primarily during the truffle season May - August) includes "A Taste of Truffles" (hunts for the general public in our truffiere to find perigord truffles with our trained dogs followed by a tasting platter experience in our Cafe using fresh truffles, and a glass of local wine), the sale of a range of truffle-based products (sold in our Cafe and online), direct sales to high end local, Melbourne and wider Victorian chefs and participation at artisanal farmers' markets. 

We are interested in expanding the opening hours for the Cafe to extend beyond the truffle season (offering non-truffle based food!), as well as investigating the possibility for the Cafe (which is a beautiful space, accommodating 25 people, located adjacent to the truffiere with an excellent commercial kitchen) to be used for other purposes throughout the year (such as a meeting place for special interest groups, business meetings, product launches, cooking/art/craft classes, book clubs, small sub-groups of U3A, Probus, Rotary etc.  At this stage we're not sure how to explore this idea further ... perhaps belonging to Commerce Ballarat may help us get the ball rolling here!