A photograph of "No 1 Coffee Palace" which operated in the main street of Drouin from 1887 to 1890.
The business, which stood approximately where Harcourts Drouin is today, was run by James and Emily Coombe.
The couple are captured in this photograph, with James in the white shirt and Emily to the left.
Whilst a large selection of coffee shops operate in Drouin today, Coffee Palace was a business of a different kind.
Beginning in the United Kingdom during the 1850s and run by the Temperance Society, a Coffee Palace was a residential hotel or accommodation which did not serve alcohol.
The previous occupier of this building, owned by Mr Lauer, had been charged with trying to burn it down. They had allegedly placed rags and debris under the building and set them alight.
James and Emily started the business in 1887.
James was born in Devon, England and had sailed with his brother George on the ship Plantagenet to Melbourne, arriving in July 1853 at the age of 22.
Shortly after, they left for the Ararat goldfields, with their claim being relatively profitable. A family story recounts how someone tried to jump their claim in the middle of the night, but James and George soon sent the culprit on his way.
James married 17-year-old Emily Ann Rendell in 1857, with the ceremony taking place in James' tent.
Emily was also from Devon and had arrived with her mother and six siblings in 1856. It must have been hard at her young age to live in a tent in primitive conditions, shifting from place to place and giving birth to 12 children whilst also helping her husband.
The family moved a number of times following the gold finds, ending up in Timor, where James and his brother ran a store.
In 1886, they decided to move to Drouin where their son John and daughter Eliza were living. Eliza had married her brother John's business partner Peter Faragher.
James had suffered from rheumatism for many years and tragically died in May 1891.
Emily stayed in Drouin to help her daughter Eliza with her children, eventually moving to Fitzroy in 1902. She later moved to Warburton to join her son John and died in 1904.
Photograph and information courtesy of the Drouin History Group.