Karen and James Rees are the married couple behind one of Cardiff’s most highly rated eateries on TripAdvisor, the Thackeray pub. Opening in 2018, the pub has managed to survive the pandemic and, not only that, but also expand in the form of a soon-to-open community café at Llanrumney Hall Community Trust.
The pair opened the Thackeray pub on Rumney Hill in February 2018 in just one month and have now transformed the community café at Llanrumney Hall in just a week, with hopes to officially open in April. They say that it’s been a “scary” but “humbling” experience.
“We feel fortunate that we’ve come out of it [the pandemic] and been able to get another business as well,” Karen said. “Our pub survived because of locals around us. We’ve got a good community around us and regulars that come into us a few times a week. So, we were grateful for all that, and then when this place [Llanrumney Hall] came up, we were like ‘OK, we’ll give it a try,’” James said.
