Guiseppe (Joe) Miele was born in the village of Caira near Cassino (between Rome and Naples).
His family emigrated to Scotland when he was a young and settled in Forres where his father Michele took over The Northern Fish Restaurant in 1930.
Later, in the the early 1960s, Joe moved to the Moray coast where he established the Primrose Cafe in Hopeman. He had a factory above the cafe where he produced traditional Italian ice cream to an original family recipe brought from Italy.
Joe and his wife Rosina (Rosie) had four children, Mario, Vittorio (Victor), Roberto and Anna-Marie.
His eldest son Mario later ran the cafe until 2010 when his daughters Carla and Louise Miele took over from him, becoming the third generation of the family to run it.
Mario continued to make Miele’s of Hopeman dairy ice cream in the factory upstairs until his retirement in 2014.
The ice cream business was sold to Stewart Sutherland and Drew Parkes who established Stew n’ Drew’s ice cream manufacturers and wholesalers. Stewart worked for Mario in his younger days at the factory which is where he learned the trade.
The cafe must have also changed ownership around this time as Mario’s daughters are no longer running it. The premises at 27 Harbour Street is currently Hopeman Sands Coffee Shop.
The Miele family ran the cafe for over 50 years.