A retro-inspired vegetarian cafe and cocktail bar is getting ready to open in Whitehaven.
Raven’s Nest, based on Lowther Street, is set to open on Thursday May 23 and is being run by Bex Bateman, 28, and Neil Waters, 30, who both live in the area.
The pair both previously worked at separate cafe and cocktail spots in the town before they decided to take the plunge and create their own dream venue.
Bex said: “We’re really excited, it’s been a dream for a long time to have our own place. There’s some nerves there, but we’ve worked really hard and put a lot of love, time, sweat and tears into it and hopefully people can feel that.
“I’m a mixologist and Neil is a chef turned barista, so when the venue became available we jumped at the chance to put our skills together and turn it into a place that is very us.”
Formerly home to The Grapes cocktail and pizza spot – Bex and Neil have completely transformed and redecorated the space under a retro theme.
Bex added: “Because we’re past the traffic lights and a bit further out in the town we wanted to make it vibrant.
“It’s very inspired by the 70s and it’s very orange! I guess you would put the vibe as 70s boho and we’re trying to go cosy, so we haven’t crammed it with seats, that way if people are coming here and doing work during the day they won’t feel overcrowded.
“But it looks completely different inside to how it was and my parents have been a huge help. My dad’s built everything and the only structure that really remains is the bar area.
“It’s been a real family project, the whole family has been involved and it’s taken about two months to do.”
Serving food platters, pastries, coffee, teas, unique hot drinks, cocktails and more – the new venue will also be fully vegetarian.
Bex added: “It’s all vegetarian because we are, so rather than doing an average job at cooking meat we will do our best job at cooking vegetarian food everyone can have.
“Neil is putting a huge amount of effort into the coffee side and cocktails wise there will be essentially 30 on the menu as we’re doing old classics and then we’ll be doing the Raven’s Nest take on it.
“We’ll also be doing a lot with Japanese whiskeys because I’ve had a lot of training in Japanese products in the past, so we’re trying to infuse new exciting flavours in things that we know work well.
“We will mainly be doing platters for our food – so it will be cheese boards, hummus platters and caprese boards. But what we’re trying to do which we think is quite unique is people will be able to buy them in different sizes.
“So you’ll be able to buy them for one up to 10 people. We’ll also be doing soups and pastries and we’ll be catering as much as we possibly can to vegans and people who are gluten free.”
Sustainability will also be a main focus at the cafe and Bex said the pair plan to grow the cafe and cocktail spot as an environmentally conscious business.
She said: “With our focus on cocktails and coffee we’ve taken classic things and found sustainable products and put a twist on them.
“If there’s a sustainable version out there we’ve gone for it and that will be an ever-growing thing. Even our toilet roll and cleaning products, everything we are doing is as B-corp certified as we can.
“We just want to do our bit because we’ve worked in the industry a long time and we’ve seen businesses throw out 10 binbags a day, and we all know where it goes.
“So we’re trying to make it all as minimal waste as we can and just do out little bit to help.”
Raven’s Nest will be open daily from 8am until 4pm to begin with and is open to private party bookings on evenings.
Bex added that once the business is settled, it will open in the evenings and will offer cocktail classes.
Dogs and pets are also welcome at the venue.
