Jennifer Ireland, the owner of the Shire Gate Cafe on Battle Hill in Hexham, was voted Person of the Week by readers including Sara Mather and Lindsay Louise Elliott.
Lindsay said: “I agree with The Shire Gate Cafe, they have the patience of a saint in there! Always very accommodating when I bring my relative in, who has additional needs,” adding staff provide ‘space and support’.
Jennifer, from Wylam, has owned the cafe for six years and sources all the cafe’s meat from her smallholding just outside of the village.
READ MORE: Farmhouse home cooked food at Hexham’s Shire Gate Cafe
The cafe serves hearty farmhouse meals which are all cooked fresh.
The Shire Gate Cafe on Battle Hill (Image: Supplied) She employs five members of staff and said she enjoys seeing the regulars every day.
“We have a good lot of regulars at lunchtime,” she said. “Hexham is really busy where we are, it’s a nice community we have here that come in. Sunday lunches are very popular, we use all of our own meat from the farm. It’s the same people that come in three or four times a week, a lot of them are regulars.
“All the food is homemade, we don’t buy frozen food. It’s all fresh vegetables every day and homemade soups.”
She said the cafe was ‘very busy’ over the Christmas period.
“All the meat comes from our farm, all fruit and vegetables are sourced locally, and all the scones and cakes are made fresh on a daily basis. We’re very happy to be in Hexham. We get a lot of the farming crowd in, local farmers support us. It’s all proper, homemade food,” Jennifer said.
“We also do a lot of outside catering around Hexham and Northumberland for weddings, funerals, and christenings and we have the stable canteen at Hexham races on race days.”
She thanked her staff, the community and her customers for supporting her and the Shire Gate Cafe.