End of road for SW emu pie shop

A South West era has come to an end, with the iconic family-run Forrest Highway emu pie store closing its doors for the final time.

The landowner's decision not to renew the Marshall family's long-term lease on the Harvey Juicy Oranges store, in favour of building an upgraded cafe, means the end to decades of history.

Rob Marshall said the decision not to renew the lease was "understandable, because that's how the commercial world works".

But it was hard to accept the journey was over, he said.

"For us, it's just very sad but we're trying to take the positives out of it, which is the memories we have," he said.

"People comment that they love coming here because it's old-fashioned. Customers have been in tears and that means we must have done something right."

The family's journey into roadside selling began in 1977, when founders Arthur and Audrey Marshall parked a trailer on Old Coast Road, as it was then called.

Tired of taking fruit from the family's Harvey orchard to Perth, he decided to sell his produce on the roadside and, in son Rob's words, it went "gangbusters".

The trailer soon became a caravan before Harvey Shire Council agreed to let the Marshalls build a shop on the Rigg Road land, which the family then owned.

In 1996, the family sold the land but the new landowner did not want the shop, so the Marshalls took it over on a long-term lease scheduled to end on June 30, 2015.

Aside from the fruit, the store has been known for its emu pies, which were originally an experiment by Arthur while the Marshalls had the world's second-biggest commercial emu farm.