A Wiltshire cafe is celebrating 20 years in business after overcoming a series of challenges in recent years.
The Hearty Hare Cafe in Chippenham has been operating at the town’s railway station since 2004 and has had to battle through both the pandemic and strikes affecting train services since 2020.
But despite these blows to the cafe’s trade, owner Rachel Butler has paid tribute to her staff for helping the business reach a significant milestone.
She said: “We’ve got a lovely community feel, we’re an independent and all our suppliers are local.
“We do care and we do look out for people, we’ve had some amazing staff come through here and we couldn’t do what we do without them, they’re brilliant.
“It has been an achievement from the team, we’ve got through because of our resilience and because of the support we get from the customers.”
While the cafe is still serving its customers, Ms Butler told this paper recent challenges had put a squeeze on the business.
She added: “Obviously the pandemic had an effect on us, and the strikes continue to affect us and everyone else, plus we’ve got utilities and one thing or another that goes into businesses these days.
“I nearly knocked it on the head during the pandemic, but we had some lovely regulars that kept us going.
“We haven’t seen the same commuting levels come back because people still work from home, but people have moved to the area so it’s swings and roundabouts.”
These issues have continued to cause issues for The Hearty Hare, with Ms Butler fearing that the cafe will struggle to return to its pre-pandemic levels of trade.
Despite this, she is hopeful that the support of their loyal customers will allow them to keep growing.
“It is a concern because you’re always up against the big boys who could come in like Costa or Pret a Manger”, Ms Butler said.
“It will be interesting to see where we are in a year, but coming through the pandemic was horrific so if we can get through that anything is better.
“You just keep going and some of the support is amazing, there are commuters who have been with us for 10 or 20 years.
“Over the next year, we just want to develop and continue to grow back to where we were.”
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