Popular cafe rises from the ashes
APOPULAR cafe is set to reopen six months after a fire which ‘devastated’ the premises.
Gobbiners Coffee Shop, on Union Road, Oswaldtwistle was gutted by a fire on October 5 last year caused by a faulty electrical fryer.
The cafe is owned by Christine Hannon, 56, who runs it with her daughter Courtney Yates, 19.
The fire, which started in the cafe’s kitchen, left Christine, who has run the business for 14 years ‘deeply upset’.
No-one was inside the cafe, or the flat above it, when the fire broke out and it is thought it had been burning for a few hours before the alert was raised.
Christine said: “It was a terrible time afterwards. To see the damage was heartbreaking.
“Everything was gone. It was devastated.
“When it had been cleaned up we just had the bare walls left.
“It was a terrible end to the year as my whole livelihood was at risk.”
However, Christine was determined to revive the cafe and since the start of the year, work has been going on to rebuild it.
She added: “The builders have been great and I’ve had a lot of support and encouragement from my regular customers.
“The cafe opened seven days a week and over the years it had become a meeting place for vintage car and motorbike enthusiasts on their way to and from rallies as well as our loyal customers from around Oswaldtwistle.
“It will be so good to see them back here.”
Final preparations were being made this week for the reopening which is set for Friday, April 13 with the cafe then open from 8am until around 2pm each day.
Christine said: “We’ve got the tables and chairs in now so we’re nearly there. I’m looking forward to greeting customers and preparing my special ‘bellybuster’ breakfasts again.
“I’m just so glad we’re going to be back on our feet from the end of this week.” Christine said that there were various theories on how the name Gobbiners was coined but it is an often used slang word for people from Oswaldtwistle.
A gobbin was a piece of coal and a ‘gobbiner’ the person who pushed around the trolleys and trailers.
The nearby ‘Gobbin Lamp’ on Union Road separates the town and true gobbiners live ‘above the lamp’.