Queen’s Park Café officially reopens

Queen’s Park Café owners Alison Schofield and Craig Wilkinson with Liz McInnes and councillors Peter Rush, Jackie Beswick, Alan McCarthy, Susan Emmott, Linda Robinson and Liam O’Rourke

Queen’s Park Café officially reopened on a perfectly sunny Sunday 7 May.

Owners Alison Schofield and Craig Wilkinson were joined by Liz McInnes and councillors Peter Rush, Jackie Beswick, Alan McCarthy, Susan Emmott, Linda Robinson and Liam O’Rourke.

The café shut suddenly in September 2016 due to the family commitments of the previous owners, who had run the café for just over ten years, but was reopened on 24 April this year by Alison and Craig.

Queen’s Park Café is a new venture for the Chadderton duo, as Alison has over 22 years’ experience as a hair stylist in Heywood. Craig also works as a double-glazer and also spent some time in Spain where he had looked at moving into catering as his real passion is cooking.

Alison said the purchase came after a lifelong dream of owning her own café.

She explained: “I’ve always wanted my own café. After my mum died, I said I was going to have a café and call it Maggie’s. It grew from that and I ended up with the best café. It just felt right.

“We’ve had a lot of lovely feedback from customers and a very good response. We were so busy on the day of the opening, we really enjoyed it and the sun was shining, it’s such a lovely place.

“We hope the café can become a great big centre of our community and try to get everyone involved; we have volunteers and employees from PossAbilities.”

The structure of the building remains the same, although the interior has had a facelift with a new coat of paint, new counter and new kitchen equipment.

Alison added: “We’ve brightened it up so it looks very different.”

The couple are also planning to run themed evening events later in the year such as tapas nights and Christmas parties.

The café welcomes mums and toddlers and is also very dog friendly, with free treats and doggy bags on the counters.

Queen’s Park Café is open seven days a week between 9am and 6pm in summer and 9am and 4pm in winter.