Operator profile: St Peter’s

Pre-dating its morning equivalent by around 50 years, brunch’s antonym, afternoon tea, was invented by the English upper classes back in the 1840s as a means of bridging that most irritating of interludes between lunch and dinner. This mini-meal has traditionally been the preserve of hotels and other high-end establishments – though it has recently become more widely available across other areas of hospitality.

One sector that lends itself particularly well to this slightly indulgent undertaking is, of course, garden centres – so much so that we added Afternoon Tea of the Year as a new category to our annual awards n 2023. “We were so happy to win it, especially with it being the first,” Robert Banks, who is head of hospitality and catering for St Peter’s Garden Centre in Broomhill, Worcester, tells me. “We’ve worked so hard to bring afternoon tea to the garden centre. It has been synonymous with hotels and fine dining restaurants, but I think garden centres, particularly in their restaurants, can offer a similar experience but at a more affordable price.”

Robert reports that, even during their quietest times, St Peter’s will still accommodate four to five bookings a day, while at their busiest times it can be as many as 20. “They are large bookings as well, of around 50 or 60 people,” he adds. “Our afternoon tea is one of our strongest pillars in terms of our catering offer.”

Background
St Peter’s boasts an extremely impressive heritage. A family-run business, it was founded back in 1978 when experienced horticulturist Tony Blake and his wife Janet spotted a disused pig farm and decided that it would be the perfect spot to set up their own production nursery. It has since evolved to include an award winning-restaurant, café, on-site butcher and farm shop. As well as, of course, a garden centre.

“We’ve been family-run for 46 years now,” says Robert proudly. “We are in our second generation of stewardship under William Blake who is the current chairman.

“We definitely pride ourselves on the personal touch and putting the local community first. We have so many people who come to the garden centre on a daily basis, and lot of people who are from Worcester work here and have been here a long time. We have some really long service staff of 20 years-plus, which is fantastic.”

Robert himself, who started out as a chef, has been with the business for just over 10 years himself – and he has certainly enjoyed the move from fine dining to front-of house. “I wanted a change of pace, having done loads of split shifts and long hours before, and to have a couple of weekends off,” he recalls. “I had a friend who worked here who recommended garden centre catering as a way into having a different work/life balance and the rest is history. It worked out really well and I’m very grateful for the opportunity.”

Much of Robert’s enjoyment and satisfaction clearly comes from working at a stunning site that also has so many different interesting aspects all working together in harmony. “We started out as a nursery and then moved into leisure and retail,” he recaps. “It’s important to diversify. We have a farm shop with a lot of local produce from within a 50-mile radius; a butchery team; Poppie’s Café, which is a new, family-orientated leisure destination for mums and kids pushing nature and sustainability with a lake; and our big, high-volume restaurant like most garden centres have at the moment.”

All this and we haven’t even gotten to the centrepiece yet. “Then obviously we have the garden centre with the nursery where we pot our own plants,” continues Robert. “That’s always been the pillar, but they all work in synch to make up an experience. That’s our vision: it’s all about the experience. We get customers who spend at least one or two hours here; on the weekends, probably longer. It’s definitely a day out.”

To return to the restaurant, the impressive Potting Shed outlet boasts some 325 seats with 100 more being available outside. Robert describes its fare as being “not a typical garden centre catering menu”. While it does provide the more usual and simple sandwiches, jacket potatoes and light bites, it also offers less typical gastro pub-style dishes, such as pies, fish and chips and Sunday roasts, as well as seasonal menus and monthly specials. “The gardeners supply us with fresh herbs and vegetables, and the meat obviously comes from our butcher,” Robert explains. “We’re very much trying to be field-to-fork.”

This relentless focus on the local area not only relates to sourcing, but also to the main reason for our chat today – the award-winning afternoon tea offer. So why does Robert think they won?

“We look at our competitors locally,” he reveals. “We look at what other people are doing, not just in garden centres but in hotels and restaurants too.”

One real point of difference is the offer of a savoury option. “Most people tend to just do the traditional,” Robert reasons. “Our sweet is based on traditional elements, but with elements of seasonality and the creativity of the pastry chefs involved too to make it more interesting.”

The quantity as well as the quality on offer was definitely a factor in St Peter’s success. As well as the sweet and savoury, it also offers kids’, Christmas and autumnal afternoon teas, as well as one-off specials to tie-in with events like the king’s coronation.

Awards
For anyone who is thinking of entering our Garden Centre Catering Awards, Robert would certainly recommend it, as he is effusive about what winning has done for the business. “The team work so hard day to day that getting this kind of recognition from the industry, as well as the awareness from their peers, is just great. To showcase their creativity and skills is very important. It’s also extremely helpful for building awareness locally, to get people to come and try us.”

Looking to the future, Robert tells me that, along with the entering the awards once again, St Peter’s has an exciting long-term plan to evolve the hospitality side of the business. “We are going to expand the café to increase the number of covers. We will also be focusing on events, so things like baby yoga and sensory experiences for the kids and their parents, because we really do see that as being one of our key customer profiles.”

Even more excitingly, they are looking to expand the already impressive main restaurant. “We are at capacity really,” Robert concludes. “We need a bigger restaurant and kitchen in order to push on. Last year we took £1.8m gross and we’d like to get a bit higher than that. We’d like to get to £2m turnover in the restaurant, but in order to get to that over the next five years, it’s going to take a lot of strategic planning and expansion. It’s all very exciting.”

You can still enter the Garden Centre Catering Awards, but you’ll need to be quick! Turn to page 24 or go to gardencentrecateringawards.co.uk 

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