New tearoom is the icing

Visitors to a local high street can have their cake and eat it after the opening of a new tearooms.

Specialising in cakes and hot food, Eat it Sweet has opened in the former Phillip Dougan Photography studio in Stockton Terrace, Grangetown.

New owners, mother and daughter team Joanne and Cristy MacLeman, took over the site last March and invested around £40,000 in renovating the former Victorian house and bringing its original period features back to life.

Just a few weeks after opening and they say the amount of customers streaming through the doors has proved to be the cherry on the top of their business gamble.

Joanne said: “Cristy ran Eat it Sweet as a Facebook page us ness w en s e was at university, it ended up being a service she just provided for family and friends to something that really took off.

“We bought the site and were originally going to rent it out. But we gave Cristy the opportunity to do something with it as a shop. We knew we already had the business from the cake side, but we decided to offer hot food, such as goose fat roasties and hot beef sandwiches, and snacks as well, and both sides have proved equally popular.

“We’ve also had a five star

yg ene ra ng rom e council already, which we’re really pleased about.”

All cakes sold at the business are home-made with popular versions including rainbow cake, carrot cake, Snickers cake, cheesecakes and tortes.

Joanne added: “We really wanted to bring back the original 1870s features downstairs so it looks like a traditional tearoom, so we removed the lowered ceiling and spotlights and restored the coving.”

As well as the tearoom downstairs, which serves Italthe anco eesan new owners have created a function room upstairs.

Joanne says as well as support from customers, the other local businesses in Stockton Terrace and Windsor Terrace have welcomed their arrival.

“The other businesses have been amazing,” she said. “We’ve had flowers from the florists and balloons from Dragonfly events. It’s important to support local high streets like this and we hope we can attract more people to the area.”