Kates Kitchen – The end of an Era

Saturday 11th June 2022 was the last trading day for Kates Kitchen in Nelson.   A very sad day indeed, which saw the end of a business that has been running for 40 years or so.

Kates Kitchen has been around for about 40 years. The last 13 years of those are with the current owners Alan & Tracey.  One of their staff, Mandy, has worked there for 37 years (back since when Keith owned it).  There have been many great friendships created, nurtured and lost during this period.

Alan says that “the lockdown hit them hard” and they have been trading for about 9 months after the relaxation of Covid-19 rules and that business had *just* started to recover.  However, the recent price hikes in raw material and energy costs have pretty much wiped out their ability to make any sort of profit without pushing prices into completely unaffordable territory.  It’s as simple as that.  The owners and staff put on a brave face, but let’s not kid ourselves … this is a long established business and everyone is upset.

But this wasn’t just a cafe – this was a community hub where pretty much everyone knew each other by first name. If you pop into a modern fast food takeaways, you can clearly see many bunches of strangers in little bubbles that never meet. This was the complete opposite – it was a micro social hub and the loss will have a negative impact all round.  Not only to surrounding businesses but also to the well being of its customers.  We often wonder how many people actually realise this? How many more of our local businesses will be affected? (Colne may also suffer serious consequences with the proposed redevelopment of their Market Hall unless much care is taken to protect those micro communities. It’s really easy to miss them or to think they are unimportant, but that would be huge error of judgement).

This, of course, wasn’t the only loss that we heard about today. Other very sad & shocking news will have caused pain across towns amongst our local communities. It will no doubt thrust mindfulness and well being into the spotlight. Be kind folks, sometimes things are not as simple as they seem. 

We popped down to enjoy one of their famous home made pies one last time, to give everyone our best wishes for the future and to grab a few final photos. PS: We chose the cheese & onion pie (my personal favourite – I can easily be bribed with these!)