A little bit of yesterday in a seaside holiday

There's still a few retro experiences to be found down on the Mornington Peninsula, writes Michelle Hamer.

REMEMBER those wonderful seaside holidays when you were a kid? Flaunting your crocheted bikini, slapping about in thongs your mum got at the supermarket (before they were cool), pitching the floral umbrella on the beach and running to the local kiosk for icy poles and cold drinks?

Tucked away at the edge of the Mornington Peninsula is a small oasis of seaside kitsch where the best parts of those childhood summers have been revived.

Walking into the Somers General Store is a step back into beach holidays of the 1960s and '70s. The furniture is the same, the atmosphere is as laid back and welcoming as it was then and the air is tangy with the smell of the sea just metres away.

Thankfully, the menu is firmly in 2010, but the spiders (drinks, not arachnids) are still here and that can only be a good thing.

We order freshly made Bircher muesli with delicious toasted almonds and the kids' pancakes for my really very grown-up teenage daughter who tells me in a monotone that breakfast ''really isn't her thing''.

Our coffee and hot chocolate come with vintage souvenir spoons from the Big Pineapple and Puffing Billy. Chilled water is served in a retro glass milk bottle and I consider telling my daughter how we used to drink the cream off the top when we were kids, but she's clearly exhausted by the effort of being conscious before midday, so I save the story for another time.

Families wander across from the beach, damp from the sea, with stripey towels thrown over their shoulders and sand between their toes. They tie up their dogs next to supplied water bowls out the front and get comfortable in the retro garden furniture on the outdoor deck with its relaxing view of the ocean.

There is a tiny shop in one corner of the store, which sells basic provisions for holiday makers, as well as gourmet delicatessen lines, local organic produce and pots of homemade jam and chutney.

On the wide timber front counter, big glass jars of Turkish delight, chocolates and biscuits sit atop a display case of tempting nectarine and pistachio friands, cherry tarts and individual carrot cakes. All the store's food is cooked on site by head chef Emily Turnbull, who has previously cooked at Melbourne restaurants Mecca and Attica.