Social media campaign leads community to rally around historic Newbury café

Newbury residents converged on the Empire Cafe in Cheap Street at the weekend in a mass show of support for the historic local business.

The café is owned by Wendy Berkeley and has been operated by her family since its establishment as a bakery in the 1920s, moving to its current location in 1947.

In recent years, the café has struggled with a dwindling customer base, which Mrs Berkeley has attributed to a lack of free parking in the area.

She said the business often depended in the past on repeat visitors from surrounding villages and this source of revenue had fallen off due to the axing of bus services into Newbury.

Business did not pick up after pandemic restrictions were relaxed and the café has been forced to limit its opening days to Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

While Mrs Berkeley does intend to start opening the café all week again around September, she feels the business has been a victim of circumstances beyond her control.

She told the Newbury Weekly News: “I feel I’ve let down my family and the business because it’s gone downhill on my watch, but not through any fault of my own.

“The infrastructure of the town has changed to such an extent.”

News of a downturn at the café, loved by many Newbury people, led to a social media campaign, with Facebook users encouraging people to visit at the weekend.

They urged those in town on opening days to visit the café for breakfast, lunch or to take away.

This prompted an upsurge in demand, with Mrs Berkeley selling out of popular bakes early from Friday.

She said: “We really kept at it and lardy cakes, which are one of our traditional items, we’d sold out of them by 10.45.

“Normally, on a Saturday, we do a second batch, which we can put in the freezer so that should people ask during the week, we can offer them a frozen one.

“But they all went on Friday, so all the fresh ones on Saturday certainly didn’t see a freezer.”

Of these surprise customers, Mrs Berkeley said: “Some of them were comparatively new to Newbury and weren’t aware of any shops in Cheap Street – which is a bit scary.

“They said they saw it [the café] on Facebook, and several of them made comments that they don’t come to our end of town because they don’t go to the station anymore.”

Mrs Berkeley was delighted by the weekend influx, but she still has reservations about her business’ future.

She said: “There’s difficulty in getting people beyond the Market Place.

“I am grateful for the ice cream parlour and new games entertainment place – at least they will bring mums with children up our end, I hope.

“But if they can’t park or parking’s expensive, that’s a big deterrent.”