Firstly I would like to offer an apology for the silence of late. Whilst, do a blog has been firmly on my do list for some time now, the time to sit down and write something never did quite come around! As some of you may be aware, we took the decision to open the tearoom on the 30th April, only opening at weekends and doing a basic take away offering so that we could balance the final of the renovations whilst also opening.

Luckily for us the week before opening had wall to wall sunshine, which enabled us to complete the cleaning, sanding and painting of the tables and chairs to be used for outside seating. This was particularly important as for the first few weekends we were open the inside still looked like a work shed as we toiled hard to finish off the interior. 

                                                             

We were overwhelmed with the support we received on the first day and first weekend, considering we went for a very soft launch! It quickly became evident that the tearoom is a much loved place and is dear to many folk's hearts near and far. The amount of emails, facebook messages and people stopping off once they see the open sign, to let us know what the tearoom means to them has been astounding. It has been fascinating to listen to all the stories, receive photos, share memories and learn many facts about the 39 Steps ( although we must admit we are still waiting for some spare time to watch the film in its entirety).

From the day we opened the tearoom we have been gearing up to offer an indoor service, with a larger offering of food and drinks, as a neighbour kindly put it the other day we are working on an incremental basis! Last weekend we were able to hit a milestone and had the tearoom in a position by which we could have customers sit in through the day and even enjoy their pizza in the tearoom of an evening. When we were still sanding and oiling chairs on the Wednesday and placing carpet down and sealing toilets on the Thursday, we questioned whether we were going to make it! However, as we served up the pizza last Friday evening, we both looked at each and commented on how nice it was to hear the clink of cutlery - a sign that the old tearoom was coming back to life and that most of the current renovation work was over! 

From this:                                                                            To this:

                                       


It has not all been plain sailing, we are learning a lot as we go along and hopefully improving on a daily basis. As a consequence we are so grateful of all our customers' patience and only hope that as you share our journey with us, you can see us learn, improve and hopefully blossom into the tearoom you hope for. Now that most of the work has been complete and we are preparing to open the tearoom five days a week, hopefully our processes will become embedded and we will provide a service of a well oiled machine!