A small village newsagent is doing a roaring trade thanks to customers being able to have breakfast, lunch or tea while they catch up on the day's events. After taking over the "dingy" shop in the precinct shopping centre in Ravenshead, Lisa Hadley has turned it into a cosy, friendly cafe.
Customers can still buy papers, magazines and greeting cards but they can get a drink and snack at the same time at Rose's Pantry. Youngsters can spend their pocket money on Haribo, Refreshers, Premier League trading cards or the latest Barbie or Disney Pixar Lightyear magazine.
It was just before the start of the pandemic that Lisa saw the shop had become available. The former dinner lady jumped at the chance to run her own business and took over the lease. She and her husband Peter, who was furloughed from his job as business development manager for a computer company, gutted the building, installed a kitchen and decorated the shop in Milton Court, where a beauty salon, a solicitors and a chippy are among the neighbours.
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Lisa, 54, said: "It was a newsagent for many years, way back when. It was a scruffy place, everybody will agree. I thought it would make an ideal coffee shop. We'll have been open three years this July and it's just going from strength to strength. I absolutely love it."
When it comes to dealing with rising costs she said: "You just have to suck it up and carry on. You have to cut costs where you can but on the run-up to Christmas it was super busy. The last two Januarys had been extremely quiet but not this January. It's got busier and busier to the point we are going to need three staff on every day it's just so busy."
Although the premises look very different to how they did as the newsagents, Lisa decided to carry on selling papers and has eight paperboys doing rounds every day.
She said: "We are open seven days a week because of the newspaper side of it and have eight paper rounds in the village. When we were going through all the information the previous owner had we saw there was an awful lot of revenue in newspapers.
"My husband comes in before he goes to work to set the papers up and sort out the paper rounds for the boys at 6.30am. He's a huge part of it. He does all the admin and sends bill out. It's practically non-stop for all of us.
"On a Saturday we'll have 140 Daily Mails and they'll have to have the inserts put in. People will come in, buy a paper, sit down and have a coffee, have something to eat."
As well as a paper, customers can pick up a copy of Hello!, Radio Times or even Engineering in Miniature. We can't imagine too many people mulling over a Slimming World mag while devouring one of Lisa's delicious homemade cakes. She gets in an hour before opening to bake.
Lisa had been baking a fresh cream Victoria sponge on the day we visited, alongside brownies, scones, and caramel shortcake. From 8am each morning breakfast is served - from toast to a large full English and everything in between such as Eggs Benedict, breakfast cobs and omelettes.
Lunch is served at the 28-seater cafe (not counting the outdoor tables) from 11am to 2pm. As well as sandwiches, toasties and chip cobs, there's homemade soup and main meals, also prepared from scratch, such as pies, chilli and lasagne, all priced under £7. Lisa is also open to requests and has been known to conjure up liver, shepherd's pie and corned beef hash.
"It's great, it's so busy, super busy. We have a lot of regular customers. They come in two or three times a week. Everybody knows everybody, you know them by first names and it's just a nice familiar atmosphere. It's precious. I wouldn't swap it for the world," she said.
Rose's Pantry serves a Sunday lunch once a month and is teaming up with the neighbouring beauty salon to do a Mother's Day treatment and afternoon tea experience. There's also the occasional themed evening.
"Last year we had an Abba-themed evening. I did food and we had the Abba film playing in the background and, of course, then it created a karaoke and everyone had a great time," said Lisa, who is helped by general manager and former dinner lady Lisa Tongue, an apprentice called Lucy, and three part-time weekend staff.
On top of running the cafe, Lisa takes orders for birthday cakes and this weekend is putting together a buffet for 50 people at a celebration in Hucknall. She's always trying to come up with fresh ideas and is thinking of organising a bingo session.
Rose's Pantry is a homage to her mum Margaret, whose middle name was Rose. "She'd have been very proud. She'd have been up here with my husband's mum every day, saying 'this is my daughter's place.'"
One regular Gill Cheetham, 80, of Ravenshead, visits the cafe every day for lunch - meeting up with a group of friends. She said: "I like the friendliness and the food is lovely. It's a lot better now because it was dingy."
Another fan of Rose's Pantry is vlogger The MacMaster, who visited to make a video for his YouTube channel which boasts more than 97,000 subscribers. The MacMaster, aka Lee Alexander Davey, sat down to a full English while he was there.
He said: "Over the past few years as a YouTuber I have reviewed many restaurants and cafes and must have eaten my way through hundreds of full English breakfasts. Every now and then I stumble upon a place that is really special, one that I would return to again without my camera and as Lee and not The MacMaster. This is one of them, what a little gem, and better still it's a local family business."
Elizabeth and Michael Goodwin can also vouch for the breakfasts. The couple travel from their home in Rainsworth to eat there regularly.
Elizabeth, 67, said: "I Googled and saw they did Nairobi tea and coffee and I buy that coffee at home so I thought I would come and try it. Well, we have never looked back. We've been coming about a year now. We've been in with the grandchildren and we've brought friends.
"The ladies are lovely. We've kind of become regulars and when people come in they say hello to us. We try and come once a week, sometimes twice. We've had breakfast, we've had afternoon tea, we have had lunches, everything is wonderful. It's hard to say what is our favourite on the menu. It's hard to pick, it depends on what time of day we come."
Husband Michael, 71, added: "It's always to a terrific standard. It's the same every time we come. And it's value for money. The most we come for is breakfast as it sets you up for the day."
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