CAKE LOVERS QUEUE AROUND THE BLOCK FOR TASTY TREAT FROM BAKERS
Pair celebrate move to bigger kitchen with pop-up shop
THE talented team behind a cake shop hailed by TV star Stacey Solomon are opening their second branch.
Scrumbles has gone from strength to strength since launching in Leek in 2019.
Now owners Beth Charles and Sarah Barber have secured a new, bigger premises in Brown Edge.
The new base will allow them to install a larger kitchen in which to create their amazing bakes.
After getting the keys to the unit in High Lane, Beth and Sarah held a one-off pop-up shop event to let the locals try their wares – which saw cake lovers queuing around the block.
Beth, aged 31, from Cheddleton, said: “Our shop in Leek has a very small kitchen, which we realised quite quickly was too small for us.
“We’ve had an eye out ever since for somewhere bigger. Around this time last year we went to look around the premises at Brown Edge and fell in love with it.
“We decided that’s where our main baking area was going to be. The last year has been getting it all ready to go. We were really excited about getting the keys, so we decided to do a pop-up shop one evening, thinking a couple of locals would turn up.
“People ended up queuing around the car park – I think the whole of Brown Edge came out. It was really nice and everyone was really supportive.”
Twenty-seven-year-old Sarah, who lives in Leek, set up the cake shop with Beth in 2017 while working together at an insurance company.
Looking for a career change, they launched their own bakery brand, selling at the Totally Locally Leek market events.
They were both made redundant in January 2019, so took the plunge to open up a physical store that April.
When the St Edward Street shop had to close during lockdowns, they offered a click-and-collect and delivery service.
Beth and Sarah have various recent successes, including a mention in Stacey Solomon’s book Tap to Tidy and winning a huge social media competition.
They currently run Thursday evening ‘dessert nights’ from the shop, where they serve up their treats accompanied by locallymade Daltons ice cream, and have stalls at various local market events.
The pair hope the new premises, which will be a second shop as well as the main bakery, will be ready to open in a couple of months.
Beth said: “Because it’s so big, it is quite daunting, but we are really excited. We will be taking on more staff and hopefully we’ll be able to do more markets and supply more local businesses.”