Project Team Getting the Finishing Work Done
Good news! The long-awaited, highly anticipated Chocolate Fayre Coffee Lounge expansion project is almost there! However, despite all of our project team working incredibly hard to finish the project, we have been let down by some of our furniture suppliers, with damaged and delayed deliveries. And it would be very difficult to have a Coffee Lounge without anywhere to actually lounge!
As a result, we have had to postpone the opening date from the originally advertised Monday 12th August, just by a few days to Friday 16th August.
Chocolate Fayre & Coffee Lounge 8-10 Horsemarket, Barnard Castle
I know that many of you had already planned to come in on that Monday, and while we have tried our best to let as many of you in person over the past week in person, and via social media, I expect some of you may not have heard about the delay in opening, and mey be disappointed if we are not ready yet. However Chocolate Fayre and the Secret Garden will, as usual, be open on Monday, and frankly, the weather looks like a stonker of a day, so it’s not really a day for being indoors anyway!
Humming Bird Decoration
Our Victorian range looking much smarter, and almost finished
Sign writing done the traditional way by the very patient and talented Sarah Jarman
Our wonderful project team, lead by the ever-persistent, problem-solving and creative building genius, Richard Green, have put almost a year of blood, sweat and tears (well, tears of laughter, mainly – it’s been a lot of fun in between the building’s problems!) into this project. It’s been something which we have gone through phases of love and regret, excitement and stress at various points. However the finished almost-result is looking really pleasing. It’s transformed from a dark, damp and dingy space, with crumbling walls and broken windows, to a bright, relaxing, welcoming space, which we hope feels like a (quite large!) living room, where you can come to relax, meet friends, and socialise. We really hope that you enjoy the finished spaces, and that we become a regular place for you to visit to switch off from the stresses of the world, talk, laugh, read a book, sit in contemplative silence, pause, even meet complete strangers. It’s a place where I hope at the very least everyone says “Hello!” to each other, asks how they are, and talks about the weather, and remembers what we did before the continuous distraction of those devices in our pockets.
We are so very much looking forward to seeing you all once we open on Friday 16th August. Thank you for your patience and constant enthusiasm!