'Cake-Hole'

It has been some time time since our last post and now we're able to break radio silence in order to reveal what we've been up to in the last few weeks. Our blog here has had to remain idle in order that we could shopfit and prepare our sparkling new venture here on Mersea Island called 'Cake-Hole', a brand new shop just two doors down from the Artcafé. Why 'Cake-Hole'? I hear you ask, well, for some considerable time demand for the tartist's homemade cakes etc. has far exceeded capacity in our little kitchen/servery at the artcafé and to be honest we've fancied having a 'deli' style shop for quite a while. so now in addition to a lovely new shop we now have an ample catering kitchen to better service the cafés, plus a dedicated office for all our admin.


'Cake-Hole'


Interior


Artisan breads, fresh daily.




Some of our olives, pistou, feta stuffed & global.


Our 'own label' ground coffees

It has been quite an effort to get this whole thing off the ground and quite a steep learning curve that we're still on having never before been in the business of retailing lovely stuff. Our ethos is to joyfully provide all manner of delicious things with an emphasis on homemade, locally sourced (or as local as possible) and good quality, with our list of stuff growing gradually each week it currently includes:- Artisan breads; fresh daily, Maggie & Jenny's homemade cakes, olives, quality leaf teas & coffee, Mersea Island free range eggs, Hadley's Farm Dairy ice cream, homemade chutney & salad dressing, plus a growing stock of stuff we can't quite describe in a word but is 'foodie' related, so, you get the gist of it so far.

We've had the name 'Cake-Hole' on ice for a couple of years now in the hope that the ideal premises would come along, and have determinedly shied away from calling our shop a 'Deli.' Not least because most deli's these days seem to by in loads of jams & chutneys etc. that are basically factory made products dressed up to look like your granny made them. Although not strictly speaking a deli., Cake-Hole is very deli-like and in the fullness of time we may not be able to resist stocking cheeses, cold meats and more conventional deli. fare alongside our olives and artisan breads already on offer.


Some of the fruits of the tartist's labours, red onion relish & honey-mustard salad dressing.

In addition to all this we've installed our old espresso machine from the Artcafé, which now has a shiny new one, so we can also make you a cappuccino etc. in our shop when things are extremely busy next door. But, of course our new shop is still in its infancy and very much a work in progress and we welcome any suggestions that would help us make improvements and extend our range to stock the sorts of things you like to buy on a regular basis.
Hopefully now this new project is up and running we can now keep our posts a bit more regular.