FIONA Lindsay opened her cafe in the old grocer's store at Dunolly three years ago.

She brought live music to the cafe - jazz and latino, classical ensembles and more.

This Saturday it will be opera with singers Julian Wilson and Janelle Christie - and a six-course lunch. Both singers have performed with Australia's major opera companies.

"It should be great fun and an adventure for us all," Fiona says.

Since the social worker from suburban Moonee Ponds and her husband, Richard, shifted to the central Victorian village more than five years ago, Fiona (right) has immersed herself in community affairs, from tourism to regional health.

Yet her great loves have been restoring the two-storey, Georgian-style 1860s home she and Richard bought in Dunolly, setting up and running her cafe, Wright on Broadway, and promoting the region's under-recognised wines.

"I'd been looking to buy something in central Victoria for years," she says.

"We hadn't planned on Dunolly but the house was particularly interesting and we thought, why not?"

Richard, a barrister, now works as a magistrate in Bendigo, 53km away.

Wright on Broadway carried with it Victoria's longest continuing grocer's licence, first granted in 1857, until Fiona switched it to a hotel liquor licence.

This meant people could buy wine by the glass and to take away. She assembled a wine list of almost 30 local labels - many not sold in any other dining establishments - from vineyards are Loddon River catchment and Lake Cairn Curran near Maldon.

"Local wines hadn't been stocked anywhere here," Fiona says. "It was a good opportunity to promote it and the food grown in the area. The food is sourced as locally as possible and is organic where possible."

Fiona hopes the legacy of the store's original owner will rub off. Scottish merchant, mayor and politician James Bell was in his 20s when he arrived from Glasgow in 1857. He built his fortune supplying nearby goldfields with food.

Those heady days, when 45,000 new arrivals swarmed the area for gold, are long gone for the town of 700. There are riches of a different sort now - good food and wine.

    CHECKLIST
  • Wright on Broadway opens 9am-5pm Friday, Saturday and Sunday. To book for the dinner, phone (03) 5468 1245.