LIFE AT WALES’ OLDEST SNACK BAR
The Hayes Island Snack Bar has been providing stressed shoppers and tired tourists with snacks and a place to relax since it opened in 1948. David Owens finds out more about the venue’s history... and what the future has in store
IT WAS the autumn of 2013 when a woman from the Valleys plotted the future of one of the most famous landmarks in Cardiff.
Back then Shani Worton, from Aberdare, and her husband Tom, were sat in Cosy Club, the restaurant perched on the first floor at the corner of St David’s in The Hayes.
From their lofty vantage point they looked down on a familiar sight to generations of Cardiffians, a building that has weathered the dictates of time – a constant in the eye of the storm of change.
As the vista around it has shifted and evolved, Hayes Island Snack Bar, which opened in 1948 and this year celebrates its 70th birthday, has remained a fixed reminder of the city’s rich heritage.
Like Cardiff Castle, Cathays Park and the Central Market, this Grade IIlisted structure is a Cardiff institution.
It is also, for the thousands who visit it every year, a reassuring oasis of tranquillity – a mecca for tea, coffee and the staple foodstuffs that have kept the city’s residents well fed for decades.
However, five years ago it was a different story. The future of the Hayes Island Snack Bar was very much in doubt.
It needed a well-overdue pick-me-up and was up for sale.
In 1999, the Davies family who had run the iconic landmark for many years wanted to sell up. They sold it to the local First Cafes group – run by three directors, but when the company wanted to downsize the business in 2011 after two of the directors died, it stayed on the market for a couple of years. There were rumours of buyers in that time, but ultimately no-one was willing to take the plunge. Until, that is, the fateful day when everything would change for the better. Inside the Hayes Island Snack Bar the smells and sounds are unmistakable. Bacon is laid out in orderly rows across a large silver pan, sausages sizzle and thick doorsteps of bread quickly acquire a tan in an industrial toaster. It’s breakfast time and the snack bar is doing brisk business among the builders, bus drivers and retail staff who are setting themselves up for the day by ordering items from the extensive menu. Especially popular is the fully loaded breakfast roll – bacon, egg, sausage, mushroom and black pudding if you’re wondering, which as its name suggests will more than fill you up and no doubt put hairs on your arteries as well. At the heart of the action are the Hayes Island Snack Bar’s longest serving staff – Gemma Regan, 32, who has worked there for 18 years, and Fran Davies, 31, who has put in a 15-year stint. They form something of a formidable double act with Fran cooking and Gemma dealing with customers.
“She’s front of house, I’m back of house,” laughs Fran.
“And don’t you forget it,” chips in Gemma, a sizeable grin spreading across her face.
The gregarious pair tell me they’re like sisters, firing off barbs and goodnatured banter at their regulars – and each other. While they might bicker and have the odd disagreement, there is one thing they are both in unanimous agreement over – Shani has revived the fortunes of the Hayes Island Snack Bar.
“It was one day we were eating in the Cosy Cafe on a Saturday morning and it looked bleak, tired and it needed a little bit of love,” recalls Shani.
“I felt that we could give it that love, but it needed a major overhaul.”
Possessing absolutely no catering experience whatsoever, Shani knew it was a risk but when she had an offer to buy the Hayes Island Snack Bar accepted, she set about her task with absolute enthusiasm.
“My background is in purchasing and logistics” explains the 47-year-old mum of two. “I was looking for an alternative to an office role. I’m very chatty and customer focused and I thought this would be a great challenge to put some love and attention into.”
She does, however, readily admit she took a chance on a brand new career that could have easily fallen apart at the seams.
“I had to hit the floor running,” she says. “In order to keep the finance in place I had to keep my old job for a year before I came here full time. At the beginning it was exhausting as I found my way, but now I’m so proud of what we have achieved. It still gives me great focus and great enthusiasm.
“But looking back it might have been a risk. However, I wasn’t thinking about that. I was just focused on doing the best I could.”
Her drive and determination fired a definite vision of what needed doing.
“It needed to have a cosmopolitan feel,” she says.
“I think some people’s perceptions were that it was an area for down and outs, we wanted to make it family orientated.
“The city is very vibrant, it has many, many visitors. We felt this was a little bit of an eyesore and we could improve it.”
As a listed building, Shani isn’t allowed to change too much about the snack bar’s physical appearance but this didn’t stop her evolving grand plans.
“We improved it by bringing out the flower boxes, putting canopies up, more seating, new tables and chairs to make it a far more pleasant experience,” she says.
“We put up televisions, better pictures and we also have the security grills which are in place at night. Previously the wooden shutters would be locked and they got damaged a lot.
“We clean it every morning, making sure it’s a nice, clean environment to sit down with a tea or a coffee and watch the world go by.”
Shani also changed the menu to be able to serve a wider range of food.
“We already the key elements in place, the basic breakfasts, the pork baps, the hot carvery, the beef and the pork,” she says. “We just tweaked it a little bit with the burgers, hot dogs and more toasties and jacket potatoes. So it became a proper snack bar with a wider offering. It’s easy, grab food that people are always going to want with a cup of tea, or a cup of coffee or a cold drink, and that’s it.
“Of course being outside we are beholden to the weather. When it’s a dry day or a warm day, it’s fabulous. The rough with the smooth is the winter when it’s cold and wet, although we do have the massive canopies and there are heated lamps in the winter.
“However, if people can see the changes and they think it’s a good service and a good price they are going to come back. If we deliver that, it works.”
And there’s no denying that it has
worked. In the five years since she took over, the Hayes Island has been completely revitalised, with a fish and chip outlet, noodle bar and newsagent kiosk keeping the snack bar company.
And let’s not forget the historic Grade II-listed Victorian toilets – the oldest in Wales, opened in 1898 and this year celebrating their 120th birthday, which were similarly under threat and closed for a time but which are now also the responsibility of Shani and her staff.
“Cardiff council own the freehold but we’ve the lease until 2037,” she says. “As part of the development of The Hayes, Cardiff council asked us to reopen and run the toilets for them. They were totally renovated in 2010, but unfortunately in 2013 had to close due to council austerity measures.
“As part of an alternative delivery plan and in order to help us fund the opening and the maintenance of the toilets which costs us £120,000 a year, we were allowed planning permission to have the three extra units and they pay for the running and the maintenance of the toilets which are free to use.
“The three units needed to be in keeping with the look of the Hayes,” she adds. “We wanted to put food within them and we thought the best would be the classic fish and chips, we did have falafel in the other unit, but we didn’t do particularly well with that so we decided to go with noodles as a healthy option.”
The third and most recent addition is the newsagents, formerly a business in the Hayes that Shani threw a lifeline to after it faced being forced out due to spiralling rent.
“We’ve also now got the newsagents, Hayes News, which used to be one of the shops on the Hayes,” she explains. “Unfortunately their rent was put up to a point where they couldn’t actually afford to run the business any more. So they asked if they could rent one of the units. We gladly said yes as it brings another sphere to the area, which is great and very positive, and obviously helps towards the cost of us maintaining and running the toilets.
“So we own the chip shop and the noodle bar and get rent from the newsagents.”
The renaissance of the local landmark is no doubt aided by its continued fascination to tourists and visiting shoppers alike, which is no surprise given its rich history.
Wales’ oldest snack bar was originally a parcels depot for Cardiff Corporation Tramways. The system of 130 trams and 32 miles of track were used to distribute parcels from 1911, until the Second World War. After the war, the depot building became the snack bar we know and love today.
Hayes Island wasn’t as always as peaceful as it is today. The noises of the open-air market that lined the perimeter of the Hayes and the trams were occasionally supplemented by the impassioned speeches of workers’ leaders in the early years of trade unionism, when The Hayes was a gathering place for meetings of dockers and other workers.
Another source of noise was a former solicitor called William Medway Davies who became known as The Hayes Orator. He could be “found every night haranguing the crowd on The Hayes about deeply philosophical subjects”, when not chalking his grievances on the pavements.
Hayes Island itself takes its name from a triangular “island”, once bounded by Victoria Place, Working Street and the former end of Wharton Street (on the north). This triangle was occupied by a small open-air market and houses fronting Victoria Place and Working Street, but changed after the opening of the city’s original library (which now houses The Cardiff Story and Yr Hen Lyfrgell) in 1882. The island was a safe haven from the road traffic which surrounded it and the trams that ran along Working Street and The Hayes.
Shani is acutely aware of the snack bar’s heritage and its place in the heart of those who live in the city. All she need do is ask her husband Tom.
“My husband is from Cardiff and his mum and dad used to regularly come here for a cup of tea and a piece of thick toast,” she says. “For us there was a lot of nostalgia and history bound up here that we felt a lot of responsibility to maintain.”
To appeal to the tourist trade and those who regularly ask staff questions about the snack bar’s history, she has added a few additions to the site – both new and old media.
“We have hung up banners which detail the history of The Hayes and the snack bar,” she says. “We’ve also teamed up with historypoints.org with a QR code point on the side of the snack bar where visitors can scan the QR codes with their smartphone or tablet to receive a concise history of the building and the toilets as well.
“We understand the importance of this part of the story and we’ve done our best to make the most of it as we know how important the Hayes Island Snack Bar is to the people of the city.”
You can sense the optimism and positivity around you. It’s there in the way Shani’s staff interact with each other and their customers, and it’s there in the way the Hayes Island now looks. It’s dynamic and vibrant, but without compromising that all important heritage and history.
“It’s a juggling act to be honest,” confides Shani. “We still have our regular customers who have been coming to us for years then we have new customers – families, tourists, shoppers, we wanted to offer them a little bit of everything, so far it seems to be working.”
For the future, there’s still much to be done it would seem, not least a festive transformation, where the Hayes takes on the appearance of a continental Christmas market, befitting its status as a vibrant European capital city.
“The plan is to keep on investing and to keep on regenerating. We’ve got Christmas coming up and we’ll soon be transforming the snack bar alongside the popular Christmas market. We make every effort to make it look especially festive and people always comment on how lovely it looks when it’s decorated.
“I also want to maintain that spirit we have here amongst the staff,” she adds.
“We started with three staff when I took over and we’ve now got 22 staff working here across all the businesses – both full time and part time.
“There are a lot of part-timers, a lot of mums. It’s like one big family. And we’re all very proud of the Hayes Island Snack Bar and very proud of the part we’ve played in keeping it alive.”