Haven Cafe
Our Haven Cafe serves Orkney Roastery Coffee and a variety of speciality teas. The cafe is a comfortable environment where you can enjoy a morning coffee, soup and a roll or some baking. It is also a discreet place to find out more about the Blide's services.
Haven Cafe Opening Hours
- Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday 11:00am - 2:30pm (last orders 2pm)
- Wednesday confidence to cook, member cooked meal served at 12:30pm order at reception (free)
- Saturday 11:00am - 2:30pm (last orders 2pm) Tea, coffee, soup & rolls
- Sunday Lunch different every Sunday - Order at reception during the week, served at 12:30pm
Food@theBlide – Café update
As everyone is aware, we did a big survey a few months ago about Food@theBlide, where everyone had the opportunity to have their say about the way we run the café and the food that we make and eat.
What came out of this survey was that people wanted:
- A traditional café set up where you order food from a menu and pay for this as you go (rather than one set meal per day)
- A larger menu – similar to what we had this time last year
- Paid kitchen/café staff with some opportunities for members to volunteer to do dishes/make tea/coffee etc
- Opportunities for members to learn to cook a main meal in the kitchen, with support from a member of staff e.g. ‘Confidence to Cook’ classes
- Some main cooked meals available each week – examples of these were Lasagne, Spaghetti Bolognese, mince and tatties, lentil dahl, homemade pizza, chilli, curry.
Once the consultation was completed we had to apply for some funding to help with paying the wages of the café staff. We wanted to employ people under a supported employment scheme and with the help of Lindsey from CLLD team we have managed to get funding to do this. This also means we can keep café prices low without making too big a loss.
We are happy to say we now have staff and new contracts in place so can start the new café system from Monday 17th March.
What members will notice is:
A larger choice of food on the menu (see drink and food menus link on the right side of this page)
A main cooked meal every Wednesday (cooked by Blide members with support from Jaden or another staff member) – there will be no charge for this. This will be instead of the café menu although drinks/cakes will still be available to buy on a Wednesday and will be made by trained Blide member volunteers.
A smaller selection of items on a Saturday (drinks, soup and rolls, cakes)
A weekly Sunday lunch – needs to be pre-booked
We hope that everyone is happy with the new plan. Thanks to all the café staff who work really hard to keep the café going and always greet us with a friendly welcoming smile!
Clare
