Great to see the sunshine this week and see people seated on outside tables. We are open this Bank Holiday Monday so please come down and see us. We are preparing for the summer and have taken delivery of a new ice cream freezer. We will be stocking Bennetts Farm ice cream from Worcester. After copious amounts of testing (tough job but someone’s got to do it!) we have chosen them as they offer a great product, are locally sourced and include a frozen yogurt in their range which is virtually fat free and something we were keen to include.

We recently put an offer on Living Social for a cream tea for 2 people for £12 (normally each). This includes sandwiches, scones and cakes.  We were overwhelmed with the response of 315 vouchers! These are all to be redeemed before the middle of August so we are busily producing them every day!  Comments include “”They have the most scrumptious cream tea. Their brownies and sandwiches were amazing! Would highly recommend this local cafe ”

The reworking of the shop space is still ongoing but the larger kitchen area is allowing us to widen the menu offer. A new Spring menu will be out shortly plus a separate breakfast menu.
We are also launching a high tea  offer using the great homemade cakes, scones and our superb artisan bread.
I am off to the ife specialist food exhibition in London at the weekend to source new products for the deli. Listening to customer feedback we want to increase the fresh goods offer and widen the charcuterie range in particular. Nearly 2 years in it still feels like we have so much to learn!

We are in the process of rejigging the layout of The Deli at the moment. With a bit of canny thought we are able to make a discreet kitchen area, increase the fresh deli area, add more chairs and tables all by using the space more effectively. It will take a few weeks so things a trifle chaotic in the process but by the middle of Feb we should be there. Hopefully this will enable us to operate the cafe side more smoothly (less falling over each other!) and allow us to broaden the menu – a fuller breakfast menu high on the priority list!

Many of you have noticed Chris is no longer around. He has gone back to employment within the museum education service so I am currently steering the ship single handedly through the choppy and oft frozen winter months!

Only a few days to go now until Christmas and we have been working flat out for the last few weeks getting in interesting seasonal stock. We have superb range of olive wood products and many interesting amaretti biscuits, sardinian panetonne, chocolate, Tracklements relishes to name but a few.

We will once again have the gazebo out in front of The Deli on Saturday with a superb range of cheeses.

More unusual French cheeses neuf chatel, maroilles, vacherin, chaumes, Camembert Calvados, Coulommiers Fourre aux noix (with walnuts)…..please don’t expect great pronunciation of their names!!

Also classic English cheeses – Colston Bassett stilton, Cheddars, Lincolnshire Poacher, Yarg etc.

To complement the cheeses we have Fine Cheese Company biscuits and fruits for cheeses. Many samples for you to try!

Thank you to all of you who continue to support us. There have been so many wonderful/funny/heart warming/humbling times to sustain us through the monsoon weather, pavement upheaval, ‘how on earth do we make any money?’ times that we look forward to the new year with renewed optimism. Pip x