Welcome Back!

We’re delighted that the Handmade Bakery and Cafe is now back open, following the extensive refurbishment of our premises on the canal side in Slaithwaite. As well as a bigger and more comfortable café space, we have a much improved bakery and kitchen space and we’re excited to welcome you back.

The refurbishment has been the biggest decision and investment that the Handmade Bakery has undertaken since it moved to the canal side premises thirteen years ago, in 2009. It’s something that as directors, we’ve talked about for the last five or six years. Each year we bake more and the cafe has become increasingly busy, so we knew the space needed re-organising as well as a major spruce up so we’re proud that together we’ve finally taken the plunge. The café space has been updated with a bespoke new counter area; a new barista station; two new toilets and handmade communal-style tables. We’ve moved the kitchen and baking spaces, to make them work much more effectively, with upgraded walk-in fridges and baking warm room.

During the refurbishment all the staff have been busy contributing in different ways to our temporary arrangements. We rented a baking space in Ripponden, where the bakers have managed to supply our wholesale customers and our markets, as well as ensuring our existing customer community could still buy our bread from the Green Valley Grocer. We’ve also run pop-up HMB’s on Fridays and Saturdays at the Ripponden venue. It’s been a great example of our co-operative structure in action, with everyone pitching in, including driving the delivery van; helping at Holmfirth and Huddersfield hospital stalls; updating our website; undertaking training and running the pop-ups. Although we’ve all been itching to return to our Canal side premises (and at times it’s seemed such a long time to wait, especially in the first few weeks!), it has enabled us all to experience different aspects of the Handmade Bakery’s operations; and bring us together in ways in which we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.

Another heart-warming aspect over recent weeks has been the kind words and encouragement from customers as we’ve delivered bread, run errands in Slaithwaite, and chatted to people at the markets. Every week we’ve shared with each other little snippets of feedback from customers who’ve stopped us in the street or at the market, asking how the refurbishment is going, and saying how much they’re missing us. It’s been a great source of encouragement for us all, as we’ve weathered the stresses and strains of the refurbishment project. And now we’re so excited to be back, to bake and cook for our community in this lovely, fresh space.

We do hope you like it as much as we do, and rest assured, all the favourites are still on the menu, including mushrooms on toast!