Whilst we wait for our own cafe building negotiations and building work to progress, we have had the honour and privilege of ‘popping up’ every Monday at the Thought Foundation in Birtley. Thought Foundation is a thoughtful arts and cultural space, formerly a vehicle repair garage, now a beautiful gallery, cafe and shop. It is well worth a visit on other days of the week too: open Tuesday to Saturday, with a great space for toddlers to play and create and lots of interesting evening events too (like their Facebook page). It is only 5 minutes away from Chester-le-Street, on the A167.

We are so thankful to Leanne and Gareth at TF for taking us on to open their cafe on Mondays. It has meant we could start to learn and prepare ourselves for opening a full-time place of our own, start to build community links in the area, and most importantly feed bellies not bins – we are collecting  more food than ever and are desperate for it not to go to waste!

The first four Mondays have been fab, we’ve had lots of new customers, yummy food, and a great team. Our last pop-up there is next week, July 31st, until potentially returning in September. Please keep spreading the word, and come along on Monday if you can!