Good Food, Good Friends, Good Times

Setting up my business was always about putting people first, and it still is. The local community are a big part of that although our ‘catchment area’ is growing and our community now extends much further afield - for example, it was amusing to find ourselves mentioned on The Late Show earlier in the year. I saw a gap in the market and wanted to fill it by giving the community something that was missing - a beating, loving heart if you like. We welcome everyone - families, dog walkers, fitness fanatics, book worms, artists, wannabe chefs, musicians, photographers, walkers, wine-lovers and knitters. We provide somewhere for people to meet where there is always a friendly welcome, free WiFi, biscuits for dogs, a listening ear.

We took a sad, unloved pavilion building in the park and turned it into a thriving community hub serving delicious coffee and food. The old Victorian building does pose some challenges but has also given us opportunities. We have staged open air Shakespeare for audiences of 350 as well as an al fresco carol service for 400. Our Big Lunch picnic, now in its third year, attracts thousands to the park and we have held Thai, Indian, Caribbean, French, Greek, Spanish and Italian pop up supper clubs. We are fortunate to be at the heart of a truly multi-cultural town and to be supported by the many people found in the melting pot that is Bedford.

Social media has been crucial to our success - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google reviews. We have over 2,500 subscribers on our database so regular email newsletters make sure they are kept in the loop with what’s on at the cafe. We recently ran a competition on Facebook asking people to tell us why they loved Bedford’s independent businesses - it is clear that people appreciate what we do and how much we care. Word of mouth is important too. We encourage our customers to share their experiences. We are lucky enough to have won a number of awards and our mention in the 2017 Good Food Guide really helped spread our message to people who might not otherwise have known about us.

When it comes to the local community, it’s all about give and take. In our kitchen we use butternut squash grown by one of my customers on his allotment up the road. In return, he and his family enjoy a free breakfast every now and then. Our web designer likewise gets a free breakfast or lunch whenever he comes in to work on our website. We like to source local produce wherever possible. We have a good relationship with all our suppliers and have started a page on our website linking back to them - we hope that they will do the same for us. We talk to people, meet people, sample products and source what we believe to be the very best.

Ultimately talking to our community is what makes us stand out – we’ve always got time for visitors. We support local charities such as Carers in Bedfordshire, The Bedford Daycare Hospice, Autism Bedfordshire, The Road Victims Trust and The MS Therapy Centre and all of these have their own networks which we can tap into in order to spread the news.

When we first opened Mondays were dead. Our knitting, sewing and crochet group grew out of this. People suggested perhaps it wasn’t worth opening on a Monday but I was totally opposed to the idea of closing. I didn’t want to be one of those cafes that you never knew whether it was going to be open or not. Instead I thought creatively to find a solution to the problem. Monday mornings now see us hosting up to 20 who come for coffee, cake, social interaction and a bit of needlework. We have undertaken projects like knitting hats for Innocent smoothies (we made 650 this year!) which go to support Age UK.

Our role in the community is to provide something that was clearly lacking. It struck home to me when one of our regulars thanked me for helping her. After her husband’s death she found it hard to find the motivation to get out every day. A trip to the Pavilion was just about all she could manage. As the weeks progressed she would be greeted with a hug on arrival and the staff would join her on their lunch breaks. She has most definitely become a friend. There are a number of other stories like this - an elderly couple who used to visit regularly and then stopped coming. It turned out that the husband had had a triple bypass and it was some months until the two reappeared. In the meantime we found out where they lived, sent flowers and of course they were greeted with hugs when they did make it back to the Pavilion for the first time. We like to create happy memories for people, but also provide a support network for those who might need some kind words.

We were recently described on Trip Advisor as ‘an important part of life’ in the town. Meanwhile The Good Food Guide described us as a ‘thriving community hub’. The people are what makes us: my customers and the team that I work with. It’s all about collaboration and working with local people to create something successful.