Wildflower Café Molong owners, Danielle and Michael Smith share their story after flood

So when the also sport-loving couple drove past Molong's pitch and saw the local bat-and-ball game in full swing, Danielle and Michael Smith's decision to relocate to the village veered seamlessly down the path of signed, sealed, delivered.

"When we were first visiting, we were driving past The Rec and they were playing cricket at the time and I fell in love," Mr Smith said, who has both cherished and played the sport for as long as he can remember.

"I love the sporting focus every weekend, it's like the whole town gets behind that one local team, and I thought 'yep, it's this town'."

Launching Wildflower Café Molong in May of 2020, the Smith's small business has built a warm and well-known presence in the town.

During the peak of the pandemic, they fed and fuelled health staff with coffees down at the COVID-testing clinic in front of the railway station - freely, of their own accord, because they wanted to.

Amidst the aftermath of severe storms and multiple flooding events, you could see Danni and Michael covered in all sorts of filth with gumboots in tow - voluntarily, of their own free-will, because they wanted to.

Social media shout outs to back local sporting squads, support small business peers' projects and promote both Molong and the Central West has also been a priority of the Smith duo - motiveless, of their own liberty, because they wanted to.

Because championing your neighbour during the good, the bad, and the ugly, is the very compass that guides Dani and Michael's moral senses and business ethics.

"We've always been the type of people who genuinely want to be ingrained in the community, where it's a two-way support system of people in a community who support you and you support them in return," Mrs Smith said.

"And it's so important in country towns to shop local, because you're not buying from the big conglomerates, you're buying from your next door neighbour; you're buying from the local footy coach, you're buying from your mate's mum, her best friend, or a dad selling handmade items from his own little workshop.

"[Our local businesses], we may not have everything available that you would like, but I tell you what - we've got a pretty damn good selection."

Danni Smith grew up near Mittagong in Colo Vale - a tiny town in the southern highlands with a smaller population than Molong - while Michael was born in bustling Sydney, the child of a former-banker.

The head of fraud for a big player branch, Michael travelled a lot due to his father's banking career - living in South Australia, England and New Zealand, all before the age of 10.

Fast-forward to meeting later on in life while living on Sydney's northern beaches, the couple have now been together for seven-years.

Finding common ground with their values and visions, they operated a mobile café for four-years with Michael's long-standing barista expertise since 2007 to lead the way.

Having previously toyed with the idea to launch a hole in the-wall café in Chatswood, the urge to settle elsewhere and away from the metropolitan hustle, only continued to gain momentum.

"We could never afford Sydney and Michael wanted something country coastal, but really we just wanted somewhere outside of the city that had good values and somewhere to lay our roots," Mrs Smith said.

"We wanted to buy a house and raise children in wherever that great community was, and be there forever to grow, work, and retire."

"This industry is also pretty over-saturated in metro areas," Michael added, "and we thought 'well, we don't want to open up just another café' that didn't have everything we were wanting and looking for."

Which is why Wildflower Café Molong and its "personal touch" from each of the pair's backgrounds, childhood memories and life experiences, means so much to them.

Danni spoke of her love of "a focus on honest cooking" stemming from her childhood, the everything-in-one country corner store growing up, the tweaking of family recipes today, and her passion for designing elaborate dried flower arrangements.

Along with their café stocking a range of locally-based products from the Central West and more, she said Michael also brought with him his deep love of coffee-making - which links them both to Naremburn's Forsyth Coffee and Tea Roasters.

A big brand in the roasted beans world, Danni said Wildflower Café Molong is only one of six hubs still supplied the famous coffee beans as wholesales from the established-in-1981 brand.

"Michael's been like an additional son in their family, they've taught him a lot to do with all-things coffee," she said.

"And we'd always wanted that personal touch there as well - how the beans are roasted, who does it, who packs it, where the roaster sources their beans to begin with - we like that personalised association even in general, and we wanted to bring all of that good stuff along with us."

And after the record-flooding event on Monday, November 14, the caregiving nature they have and brought to Molong with them as well, was evident on Bank Street.

Along with a power outage that spanned the village, thankfully their café only suffered minimal damage with "a few lost boxes" and minor water trickling in.

But after waiting for the water to recede in the main street - where they lugged items through the muck to help the town's CBD on that Monday - the following day, they went straight into action mode.

"On the Tuesday, we made sure that we did a bigger shop and ordered in a lot more stock than usual, because people were saying 'will you open tomorrow so people have food and somewhere to go if they want' and we just said 'of course we will'," Mrs Smith said.

"We didn't even see not opening as an option or not having that as a choice, because people needed to know they had a safe haven if they wanted it and we wanted to be able to provide that for them.

"Our community was hit hard and [the flooding] destroyed a lot of peoples' livelihoods and their businesses, homes as well; some people lost their business and home in one go, it was horrible."

The call-out for anyone in need of a place to get away from it all, a hot meal, a coffee and a chat was plastered on the Smith's business page.

Supporting flood-ravaged businesses in Molong was also plugged on their social media platform with ideas to help them, including their gratitude for the town and everyone who helped it.

"It was so quiet [on that Monday morning], very eerie with people walking around just looking bewildered and trying to figure out what the hell had just happened in our awesome town and looking like 'well, what do we do next as a community?'," Mrs Smith said.

To feel "that sort of hopelessness" while watching people looking lost and disoriented, the Smith couple said they wanted to do whatever they could to support the deluged township.

"You can't help out any more than you physically can when you're there or even monetary-wise for us, as we're only just a small business ourselves," Mrs Smith said.

"So we wanted to create this type of community hub for everyone where they could feel safe and sit down, even just to collect their thoughts."

The couple received donations to buy and supply food for those most in need, including purchasing some homewares vouchers for residents who had lost items in their family homes.

Doling out free meals and coffees the Smith's said felt "really, really good" to be able to do.

"We're helpers, we love helping out when and where we can; that's our jam, we love giving back," Mrs Smith said.

"So to be able to do that for our town when those impacted needed it the most, that felt so organic and beautiful for us to be able to do, especially when we've been so welcomed and supported here, too.

"We've grown to love this place [Molong] and we'd do anything for the people in it; and in the future, this is exactly the kind of community we envisioned to raise our own little family."

Free event: Wildflower Café Molong at 33 Gidley Street play host to the town's first Live & Kicking event by Arts Outwest on Saturday, December 10 from 12 noon, which will feature female artists Josie Laver and Chloe Swannell.

To book a table, phone the Wildflower crew on 0456 421 684.

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