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Organised by We are the MinoriesThe Minories Café is on the road to re-opening! We plan to launch this Autumn with an exciting fresh menu and need your help to refurbish the kitchen and café spaces, as well as purchasing essential new equipment.
Closed 26/10/2023
The journey so far – We are the Minories invited local caterers to submit proposals to re-imagine The Minories Gallery Café. Our top priority is to provide space for our community to socialise and have fun in a beautiful space, along with providing a nutritious and affordable menu of locally-produced fare.
The proposal by Common Ground Colchester, [Founding Members and local residents: Marley Spindler, Emma Hinton-Chesters, Hetal Amin, Marley Spindler, and Michael Chesters], showcased an exciting offer, cooked by local people, from local produce, supporting local growers and land workers. Additionally, we were attracted by their local community social benefit organisation model, becoming incorporated as a Co-Operative Society, providing a leading local example for collective ownership models, over time, focused on upskilling, educating, and training their staff members. In their words:
'We will pride ourselves on creating a community platform for local food and contributing to the economy of the city, paying our employees a real living wage and making positive inputs to the wider community'
The Minories team understands the strong local community need for a unique collective space, a creative ‘hub’, where people can share ideas and experiences, whilst socialising, relaxing, and enjoying quality, locally sourced, affordable fare.
Emma Howe, Director of the Minories says:
'‘In the short time I have been with We are the Minories I have been touched by people’s memories of times they have spent in the gallery and café. Our café has been an important safe social space in Colchester for many years, and we are excited to work with Common Ground Colchester to make this a reality once again.'
We aspire that this new café partnership will provide an accessible space for all community members to enjoy, whilst support the connectivity and emotional wellbeing of those who currently know of us and those we’re yet to meet! We intend the café’s offer to complement our activities programme, supporting pop-up events, fundraising activities, new audiences, and our sustainable wedding package offer.
Your generosity and support will significantly help us to achieve a timely relaunch of The Minories Café by enabling us to swiftly purchase equipment, furniture, and fixtures, as well as complete important safety and refurbishment works to the café and kitchen spaces. We are looking forward to reopening this Autumn and begin to welcome you back into our beautiful walled garden.
We need your help for the following startup costs:
1. New equipment for the kitchen including a catering fridge and freezer, a dishwasher, a coffee grinder, storage jars, knives, chopping boards. The basics really!
2. Refurbishment of our existing kitchen equipment to bring it up to catering standard after a period of being empty – including cleaning the kitchen extractor fans, safety testing the gas oven and deep cleaning.
3. New garden furniture, including tables, seats with backs, and umbrellas to provide shade.
4. New indoor furniture including tables and chairs, and high chairs for small children.
5. Staff and contractor costs to prepare the cafe for opening.
6. Licensing costs
As per the many visitor feedback form comments we’ve received at recent events, many of you feel this is long overdue:
I can’t wait for the café to open!
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