By Rebecca McGirr
WHO doesn’t love a good toastie? That’s the message owners of The Toastery; husband and wife duo Sophie and Rossa Mac Aindriu are sending out to Fermanagh customers as they move into their sixth week of business.
If you haven’t heard, The Toastery is a new cafe in Enniskillen town serving up coffees and all different varieties of toasties, from classic ham and cheese, to even macroni and cheese.
Although the cafe has just recently opened, business is booming with queues of people lining up outside to get a taste of this delicious comfort food.
‘The feedback has been really positive, we are just delighted,’ said Sophie.
Sophie and Rossa have up to 14 years of experience in the hospitality industry and after three to four years of travelling they explained how they decided to go ahead with their dream business venture.
Sophie said, ‘We have wanted to do this for quite some time now, we just wanted to be our own bosses and have our own place and as soon as we came back from travelling it kinda hit home that we wanted to do this sooner rather than later so here we are. ‘
When the pair were setting up the cafe Rossa said, ‘ We wanted to bring the city vibe and still have a local element too.’
‘We wanted to bring something a wee bit different; so city vibe; minimal look, and good music,’ said Sophie.
Out of all the toasties the cafe sells Sophie said the humble ham and cheese also known as ‘The Ham Hoc’ in The Toastey is the most popular.
‘A lot of people typically want a ham and cheese toastie but we have done it a bit differently, so we slow cook our ham in the oven for 16 hours, and then it is pulled and we have our own housemade pineapple chutney that goes on the side. We also use local products such as farm cheeses from Cavan and Joe the Bakers sourdough bread so you have the local element and the handmade element coming in, so we like to use really good high end quality products.’
Looking ahead, Sophie talked about what they hope to introduce in the business in the future.
‘We are very new but we are actually making small tweaks to the menu and thats changing as of this evening. We will also be introducing loyalty cards because although we are only open 5 weeks, the loyalty that we have received is just tremoundous so we want to give back to the customers that are coming everyday; sometimes two, three times a day its just insane! Gift cards are also going to be on sale because we get a lot of people asking about that and then we might introduce some toastie specials in the week, again we’re just growing, we have a couple of things in the back pocket that we will release as time goes on.’
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