Marks & Spencer is to award ‘golden tickets’ to the first 200 customers at its Harrogate Oatlands foodhall tomorrow to mark the store’s official re-opening.

The foodhall on Leeds Road has undergone a major refurbishment and extension. It is now 60% bigger, and includes a bakery and wine shop — but the customer cafe is much smaller.

Although it is currently trading, tomorrow’s official reopening will see Percy Pig award golden tickets to the first shoppers at 9am. Each ticket guarantees a prize ranging from a free bag of sweets or cookies to a £200 voucher.

Store manager David Anderson said:

“We can’t wait until Tuesday morning when we can welcome customers through our doors.

“It’s been a busy few weeks behind the scenes working hard to put things together and we’re excited for everyone to see what the new store has to offer. Whether you’re looking for a quick lunch on the go or doing your big weekly shop – we’ve got you covered.”

The store, which employs 125 staff on Oatlands Retail Park, is open Monday to Saturday from 8am to 9pm and on Sunday from 10.30am to 4.30pm.

Read more:

• M&S café in Harrogate saved after U-turn
• Ferris wheel goes up as Harrogate Christmas countdown begins

Business Breakfast: Harrogate’s Christmas plans revealed this week

Harrogate Business Improvement District will be joined by representatives from Market Place Europe and Destination Harrogate to share plans for Christmas 2022 to businesses.

Last Christmas saw a change to previous years with the creation of the first Harrogate Christmas Fayre, in the town centre from December 3 to 12. Festivities included a free road train called the Candy Cane Express, a carousel, helter skelter and ferris wheel.

It followed Harrogate Borough Council’s decision to deny a licence to the former market organised by the Harrogate Christmas Market on Montpellier Hill.

The meeting this Thursday is at the Yorkshire Hotel’s Sky Bar at 5.30pm.

Matthew Chapman, Harrogate BID manager, said:

“At Thursday’s BID Club, we will be informing businesses what will be happening within the town centre this festive season.

“We will be joined by Destination Harrogate and Market Place Europe, who will update us on this year’s Christmas Fayre, including location and number of stalls.

“This meeting is open to all businesses within the BID area, and will be an opportunity for them to ask questions, and to find out how that can get involved with making Christmas 2022 a festive season to remember.”

To reserve a space email info@harrogatebid.co.uk..

M&S temporarily closes cafe at Harrogate Oatlands 

How the food hall will look.

Marks and Spencer has temporarily closed its cafe at its Oatlands food hall in Harrogate.

The company planned to close the cafe for good as part of an expansion of its Leeds Road site, but decided to retain it after a customer petition.

But a smaller, new-look cafe will open when the expanded site is launched.

The rest of the food hall will continue to trade throughout with some areas blocked off while the work is underway.

Store manager David Anderson said:

“We’re delighted to confirm that as part of the upcoming extension and refresh of our Harrogate Oatlands store, customers will be able enjoy a new-look M&S cafe alongside a fresh-market style food hall, offering a bigger range of M&S food products than ever before.

“We expect to complete the works later this year and will keep the local community updated as they progress. We would also like to thank local residents around us for their ongoing support as we work to improve the store.”

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Marks & Spencer has decided to retain a café at its Leeds Road food hall in Harrogate after previously saying it would close.

The company announced in December it planned to increase the size of its food hall at Oatlands by more than 70% and extend into the neighbouring Sofa.com retail unit.

It said the scheme would enable it to ‘deliver a bigger, better and fresher new-look food hall’ but that it would mean closing the in-store café.

How the Oatlands food hall will look.

The café is a popular meeting point and the news prompted a petition calling for it to be retained.

M&S has now confirmed to the Stray Ferret that its new look food hall will include a café.

The woman who organised the petition, who lives near the food hall but asked not to be named, said the manager of the store had contacted her to say the café would be retained but would be smaller. She said she understood it was likely to be similar in size to the new Pret shop in Harrogate town centre.

But she welcomed the decision to retain the café:

“I’m pleased. There isn’t a café like it in the area. It’s a place people go to meet friends, especially older people.

“I think they recognise the whole community uses it and a lot of people said they wouldn’t go there any more if it closed.”

Read more:

• 200 people sign petition to save Harrogate M&S cafe
• M&S gives sneak peek of expanded Harrogate Oatlands store

Harrogate’s newly-renovated Crimple has appointed a new executive chef.

Tim Kitchen started his first head chef role in 2013 at D&D in Leeds and has worked in various venues across Yorkshire since.

Mr Kitchen has moved to Harrogate from Skipton’s Keelham Farm Shop — a success story Crimple is keen to replicate.

This new chef joins shortly after Crimple, previously known as Crimple Hall, completed a £6 million investment. It now has a 20,000 square foot food hall, 150-seat restaurant and private events space plus a garden centre and gift hall,

The food hall has an in-house bakery, 12-metre butcher’s counter and chef-cooked ready meals. All the food and produce is locally sourced and fresh.

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Graham Watson, the owner of Crimple, said:

‘”We are incredibly excited to bring Tim aboard the Crimple team. We’re passionate about supporting local and can’t wait for Tim to weave his creativity and passion into our menus.

“With late night dining launching imminently and a big focus on private events in 2022, there’s lots to do but with Tim at the helm we know the food will triumph.”

Mr Kitchen added:

“I’m looking forward to this next chapter in my culinary journey.

“With all the buzz around the re-launch of Crimple I can’t wait to get started.

“I am truly excited about the opportunity to meet customers and help make their dining experience unforgettable.”

More than 200 people have signed a petition opposing the closure of the cafe in Marks & Spencer‘s store on Leeds Road, Harrogate.

The company wants to increase the size of its food hall at Oatlands by more than 70% and extend into the neighbouring Sofa.com retail unit.

But the plans would also see the closure of the cafe, which is a popular meeting point.

The petition, sent to the Stray Ferret by one of the signatories, says:

“There is such strong feeling about the cafe. Your customers really appreciate the service and feeling of community there. The staff are also so kind and friendly.

“The customers see it as a wonderful meeting place, a resource which is convenient for shopping and a place for parents and children to meet up before and after school.

“The elderly and lonely also find friendship in the cafe. Plus the food and drink is excellent! I really hope you will read all the comments and reconsider closing the cafe.”

Read more:

• M&S gives sneak peek of expanded Harrogate Oatlands store
• Petition mooted over Marks & Spencer plans to close Harrogate Oatlands cafe

The petition has also been sent to Andrew Jones, the Conservative MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough.

If M&S’ plans are approved by Harrogate Borough Council, the expanded store will include an in-store bakery, wine shop, fill your own section to reduce waste and new decor throughout.

The retailer said in a statement:

“Our expansion plans at M&S Harrogate Oatlands are designed to deliver a bigger, better and fresher new-look food hall for shoppers and mark a significant investment in the local area.

“Whilst these plans involve closing the in-store café, they will allow us to transform the store to deliver the very best of M&S for our customers in Harrogate, with a bigger range of M&S food products than ever before.”

Harrogate’s first food hall is to close just six months after it opened in the former Jamie Oliver restaurant on Parliament Street.

Solita Food Hall Harrogate, which is set over two floors and a rooftop terrace, started serving customers in May.

It has six different stalls, all under the Shoot The Bull brand, and also welcomes other independent businesses on board. It created 30 jobs.

Founder Chris Harrison, chief executive of Shoot The Bull, told the Stray Ferret earlier in the year he hoped Harrogate would welcome the concept with open arms. However, Mr Harrison confirmed today that the Harrogate venue will close at the end of the year.

He added that staff would be offered employment at the next restaurant set to take on the building.

Read more:

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• First food hall opens in Harrogate next week

Tomahawk Steakhouse, which had been planning to move into the empty Bistrot Pierre restaurant on Cheltenham Parade, is now planning to move into Solita Food Hall’s space.

The steakhouse had planned to open in January but with the change of location it is unclear at this stage when it will open for business.

A post on its Facebook page said:

Co-founder Howard Eggleston has been planning to bring his steakhouse brand to Harrogate for four years.

If there’s one thing that Harrogate does incredibly well, it’s food and drink.

The district has some of the best producers in the country and there is no denying we are completely spoilt for choice when it comes to delicious Yorkshire fare.

So it comes as no surprise that excitement is ramping up for the launch of Harrogate’s huge new £6m food hall in Pannal, which overlooks the Crimple Valley.

The 48,000 sq ft building, which is simply called ‘Crimple‘, will include a butchery counter, an in-house bakery and patisserie, a floristry and a 160-seat restaurant.

Sustainability

And with a huge emphasis on sustainability, there are set to be some very quirky additions to the venue, including it’s own beehive and a reconditioned milk float, complete with milk on tap and refillable glass bottles.

Crimple has been owned by Graham Watson since 2013. With a personal investment of £4m for the construction, plus £2m for the fit-out, the business-owner has created the town’s latest foodie destination in a bid to showcase all the amazing produce the district has to offer.

The man tasked with getting the food hall up and running is general manager Chris Lidgitt, who gave me a sneak preview of the site.

He said:

“We want to be a destination site for North Yorkshire.

“We are proud of what we have done behind the scenes and we all know what it’s going to look like when it opens. We can’t wait to show off our hard work.

“Harrogate needs something like this.”

After two years of planning and more than a year of construction, the food hall is set to open its doors in the second week of November and will see more than 80 new jobs created.

Events space

If you have visited Crimple Valley before, you will be familiar with the antiques centre at the site. This has been completely knocked down and the food hall and restaurant has been built in its place. The garden centre will remain and the existing restaurant and terrace will become an events space.

An exterior computer-generated image of the new food hall.

The food hall’s timber-framed building, with its staggered roof, is eco-friendly and sustainable.

The striking design of the building makes reference to agricultural buildings through a series of interconnected barn-like forms.

A heat recovery system also provides all the hot water for the site and energy-saving refrigeration has been fitted.

Impressive

It certainly looks very swish when you drive past on Leeds Road and its even more impressive when you go inside.

When you first walk in, it’s impossible not to notice the sheer scale of the food hall.

Inside the new Crimple food hall.

The distinctive “saw tooth” roof makes it feel light and airy. The space will allow shoppers to move freely around a specially-designed layout, aimed at making it a relaxed and enjoyable foodie shopping experience.

More importantly the design of the roof allows for natural ventilation and hosts solar panels to feedback power to the grid. In addition, motorised windows keep the temperature constant without wasting electric on heating and cooling.

Butchery counter

One of the big draws will be a 12-metre-long butchery counter, which will have a selection of meats, including the more unusual T-bone and Tomahawk steaks and ox cheeks, as well as the usual cuts. It will also boast a glass-fronted dry-ageing meat fridge.

Chris, who has been in the food and drink industry for years and was a director at The Local Pantry, in nearby Pool, said:

“We will use the in-house butchery department and the produce from the store to supply the restaurant.

“A deli counter will offer cheese, which we are going to mature ourselves in a cheese maturation fridge – from three, six, 12 and 18-months-old.

“There will also be a quirky juice and coffee bar, offering fresh juices and smoothies, which will have a big ice well.

“There will be floristry and gifts, fresh fruit and veg and a bakery, where we will eventually make our own bread. Two bakers will bake in-house including cakes, tarts and patisserie items.

“There will also be a beehive in a sealed unit, which shoppers will be able to see. This will supply honey to sell in the store.”

Yorkshire producers

Food and drink from lots of local producers and independent producers from across Yorkshire will be on offer at Crimple. They will include Bracken Hill Fine Foods, Guppy’s Chocolates, Sawley Kitchen, The Yorkshire Pasta Company and The Original Baker. There will be meat from Robertshaw’s and bread from Cawa Bakery and Lancaster’s. Coffee will be supplied by Dark Woods Coffee.

There will also be food to go, including in-store produced ready meals, pizzas, and fresh fish, as well as a horticulture shop and a grain store.

Chris said:

“There’s a real emphasis on Yorkshire produce but also an emphasis on trying to be different.”

An interior computer-generated image of the new food hall.

• The food hall and garden centre will open on Monday to Saturday from 8am to 7pm, with the restaurant and bar set to offer late night dining in 2022. The restaurant will open from 8am to 5pm. Sunday opening hours will be from 10am to 4pm.

Harrogate’s first food hall will open its doors next week to serve up a range of cuisines under one roof.

Solita FoodHall Harrogate, on Parliament Street, has had its rooftop terrace open over the last month with a reduced menu.

Now it is ready to invite people indoors as restrictions ease. The food hall is set in a huge building over two floors. There is room for 80 covers inside with social distancing.

Watch the chefs cook your food.

But it will open fully next Monday with Rupert’s Coffee House, Rotisserie & Grill, Solita Wagyu Burger, Slice Me Nicely Pizza, Cure & Pour Wines and Solita Fish Bar.

As well as the six original stalls, all under the Shoot The Bull brand, Solita has welcomed other businesses on board and is in talks with even more.

Read more:

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Huddersfield-based Kwas, which is promised to be another first for Harrogate as a natural wine shop, will open next week. It will stock more than 100 vegan, organic and eco-friendly wines.

An eco-farmer from Sheffield is also opening up a stall on the ground floor. Leaf and Shoot will sell house plants, flowers and pottery.

The double bacon cheese burger.

Shoot The Bull already has restaurants in Manchester, Hull, York, Beverley and Sheffield. The Harrogate branch has created around 30 jobs.

Chris Harrison, CEO of Shoot The Bull, told the Stray Ferret:

“I am so passionate about food and the whole team has so many different ideas. So I think when we saw this venue we saw it as a place to unleash all of those ideas under one roof.

“Our food hall is just a food experience, more of an emporium. We want people to come here as a family or with friends and everyone be able to get the food they want.

“It’s completely different and this is something Harrogate has not got. It’s a lovely, busy town. There are a lot of big players here so we think we will fit in here.”

There is plenty of room, even with social distancing.