Not just rolling with it, a fantastic 1st anniversary for this successful business

When I entered the shop Jez was busy as usual, taking a new order and preparing another customer’s latte and breakfast. The atmosphere’s good, warm, friendly and inviting. He took a few moments out to talk with me about the first year and his plans for the future.

"The year anniversary was 28th September" he said, “ and I thought about doing a big first year anniversary. But I managed to get tickets to see Oasis in London, so I went to that instead - for once the shop had to come second!" he joked.

"It's gone beyond the expectations of what we thought it would do, it found its feet quite quickly. From the start it was going to be a take away, but we learnt almost overnight that the takeaway was almost a second side of it. We found that people like to come in, sit down, enjoy, and have a bit of banter, we've got a good core of regulars that enjoy a chat.

Of course it's about the food, but I think when people come in here we have alot of fun, and alot of laughs."

"We can get sixteen covers inside, and two outside, for a shop this small, eighteen covers is quite achievable. We've got a bunch of people who come in quite early, and they're here an hour or an hour and a half, take coffee and a bit of toast, sometimes a bit of egg on toast, and they're here pretty much every day. And then we have people that come in and want to grab and go, as they've got to get back to the office, also alot of retired people, it's going very well.

"When we first opened we didn't do much in the way of a breakfast offer. We wanted to find our feet, find the capabilities of the kitchen,and now we do a roaring trade on breakfasts. We're about to revamp the breakfast menu, they're a good offer, and run throughout the day. The new breakfast menu will include all the usual staples, plus black pudding, bubble and squeak, and all that sort of thing. The rest of the menu has also been extended, using fresh ingredients, keeping the dishes fresh and live"

"We've still got the outside catering part of the business {Fresh Start Catering Sevrices}, which runs from Brunchies is doing very well, offering corporate lunches, private lunches, office catering, deliveries, and that's always really busy. Sometimes we have to get in at 4am to get a couple of big breakfasts out and delivered."

"There's lots going on and it's been a really good year. We've taken on Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eat, and use those companies to get the product out to people that can't come to us."

So whatever the masterplan was, little by little, Jez and Maxine’s business has gone supersonic!