Harrogate cafe to partially reopen this weekend

Since it first opened seven years ago, Baltzersens, the award-winning independent Scandinavian-inspired cafe on Oxford Street famous for its coffee, cinnamon buns and more, has become renowned for leading the way in its menus and reusable cups.

Next week it will be two months since owner Paul Rawlinson closed the doors of the cafe and coffee shop in the face of the growing national threat from COVID-19.

Having been able to launch its new bakery during lockdown - Bakeri Baltzersen - it begin baking bread to deliver to customers' doorsteps or offer up for collection at the coffee shop.

Now it is to go a couple of steps further.

Writing on its website www.baltzersens.co.uk it has now announced the following:

Opening for Takeaway Brunch

This weekend (Fri 15th and Sat 16th May) it is going to open to serve coffee to takeaway from 9am-1pm.

Head Chef Ben has been taken out of furlough to prepare three new brunch sandwiches that we developed in the early part of March and were intending to launch prior to Easter.

What's more, if the test this weekend is a success we will then look to open regular hours in line with bread collections and then beyond those hours if there is a demand to do so.

Ben will be creating a range of regularly changing grab and go sandwiches and exploring other options that Baltzersen's may serve during that daily service Wed-Sat.

Opening for takeaway coffee

Baltzersen's is also going to start doing takeaway coffee again on Friday 15th and Saturday 16th May as a trial. If it goes well it says it will continue to offer it.

Customers will be able to order a coffee for immediate preparation or select a time to collect between 9am and 1pm.

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Easing lockdown: A statement on the Baltzersen's website www.baltzersens.co.uk

"We have been incredibly lucky to have been able to launch Bakeri Baltzersen just about in time for us to switch focus and begin baking bread to deliver to your doorsteps or offer up for collection at the coffee shop.

"To be completely honest with you we are not expecting that we’ll be welcoming guests back into our venues until autumn at the very earliest.

"We know this could slip towards the Christmas period or even beyond into 2021.

"This is a challenging reality for hospitality, retail and many other businesses across the country but we can’t afford to be too downbeat about it.

"We need to adapt what we do in the best way we can in order to be able to bring as many of our team back from furlough as possible and generate some revenue to continue to pay the bills for as long as we aren’t able to use our spaces properly."

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