A new café and artisan bakery has announced it is setting up shop in Whitehaven.
Owner Benjamin Ardelean, 31, and his wife Carmina, 28, who are both Romanian, moved to the town last year from Birmingham after falling in love with the area.
Carmina, who owns a leatherwork business, bumped into an employee of The Beacon at one of her crafting workshops when the conversation of taking over the old café space in the museum first came up.
She said: “We started out by going to markets organised by Jenny Brumby of TEGretail and we came to know her and we kept chatting about opening a bakery at some point because there isn’t really any in Whitehaven.
“It’s a bit of a tangle but I invited Jenny to one of my leather workshops and she invited her sister who happens to work for The Beacon and I mentioned that we would like to enquire in regards to rent prices and the possibility of renting the premises because we found the café that was in the space before had closed down.”
Carmina then spoke with Heather Holmes, Copeland Borough Council’s customer and visitor experience manager, who helped the duo get the ball rolling to rent the space.
She added: “We presented our ideas for the café and had a meeting and Heather and the team really liked our idea of a bakery/café with a lot of handmade cakes and pastries and bread as well as a healthier alternatives for meals for lunch time and a brunch menu.
“It has been a long process with working with the council to sort the details of renting the space but we’ve now finally signed the lease.
“It all just started by chance, we were thinking of opening a bakery at some point but I guess we didn’t really believe it would happen until this opportunity came along and we jumped at it head first.”
The couple are already hard at work renovating the space and they have been sharing their journey of creating the new café on social media
Carmina added: “Everyone seems really excited to see it open so we are working really diligently to make it happen as soon as possible.
“The pictures we have shared are the vision we have for the space. Even before we signed the lease we did have an instinct the bakery was going to happen so every time we saw an object that we thought would go well into the bakery we bought it with the hope that we would end up using it.
“So we already have an attic full of paintings and furniture and Ben has got a lot of kitchen supplies and things like that.
“The pictures we’ve shared show the same furniture we will use in the café and the aesthetic is going to be the same – that will be the vibe of the place, it’ll be a bit interesting and a bit different to anywhere else we have seen in Whitehaven.”
Carmina said that the pair are working hard to open as soon as they can and they hope to be open at some point soon during the Springtime.
While the duo will independently run the café it will also work in collaboration with The Beacon museum.
She added: “The community support has been incredible, especially on Facebook with people sharing our news so we are really really excited and we really hope it will be up to everyone’s expectations.”
Ben, who creates the bakery’s sweet treats and breads, is a former chef who said he had always enjoyed baking but had only recently decided to start selling his bakes.
Some of the bakes Ben creates include coconut and chocolate sponge cake, amaretto cherry cake, berry pies, apple cake, cozonac, dessert salami, breads including focaccia, brownie cookies and cinnamon buns.
