One of the west coast’s most popular cafes is planning to move part of its business in Glasgow to help recruit staff.
The Real Food Cafe in Tyndrum is a regular stop for people making their way along the West Highland Way or travelling to Oban or Fort William.
Not only is it known for fish and chips, but it is also a favourite for home baked cakes made freshly in the village.
But now owner Sarah Heward has announced they will “temporarily” close the bakehouse at Tyndrum due to difficulties recruiting staff.
She insisted it was a short-term measure, but revealed plans to create a larger kitchen in Glasgow – which is 75 miles away – to give Tyndrum customers a bigger offering in the future.
If you would like to read my blog post on where we are operationally at present and our next steps in the development of the business, please click through on this linkhttps://t.co/AyZJep459x
Best wishes, Sarah pic.twitter.com/D8wXEjO3tX— The Real Food Cafe (@therealfoodcafe) June 15, 2022
Tough decision
She said: “In case you are not aware, there are significant shortages in the labour market nationally and for various reasons, rural areas are sadly particularly badly affected.”
“In order to keep our current opening hours and high standards, one of the toughest decisions we’ve had to make is to temporarily close our bake house in Tyndrum.
“This is a temporary step. We fully expect to get our homebaking up and running again later this year and our homemade scones back on the counter, in a few weeks.
“Looking at the bigger picture, we are developing a much larger food production kitchen in Glasgow to support our Tyndrum cafe and the future operations we have planned.
“This will reduce the preparation pressures and enable our team to focus on service.”
She continued: “It will also alleviate some of the unique rural issues such as the acute lack of housing and obviously there’s a far bigger population from which to attract people to join our team.
“Our aim is to run daily deliveries of our baking and fresh, tasty food to the café and businesses/communities en-route.
“As I’ve said before, we have never been half committed, we love Scottish hospitality, tourism, food and drink and we continue to remain fully committed and invest in the future of our business.”
Conversation