Freshies settles into new space

After seven weeks of hard work, Freshies cafe is settling into it’s new home on 2nd Avenue in Fernie.

“I’m certainly glad to be back behind the bar serving customers again, as opposed to swinging hammers and throwing pain around,” said Freshies manager, Ben Ingle.

“It’s nice to be back in here.”

The popular Fernie cafe didn’t move too far from its previous location on 2nd, moving across the street to 601 A 2nd Ave and opening on Christmas Eve.

Ingle said that customers new and old could expect the same of Freshies they’d come to expect - but with even more potential thanks to the new space being “designed from the ground up” to suit Freshies business model.

The previous location - which is now the home to the new Local Store - was home to Freshies for 12 years, but the new location offered Freshies more outdoor space - which was going to be great when summer came around - and more space indoors that provided the opportunity to “realize the vision that we have for what Freshies can be, and really build on the community venue angle.”

Ingle said that the new space allowed Freshies more flexibility, with the cafe’s ability to provide the service customers have come to expect through the last few months such as made-to-order sandwiches thanks to a dedicated kitchen, and all bread was being made on-site.

There’s more on the horizon planned for Freshies in the near future, with many ideas still being worked on (such as Sunday brunch), but Ingle said that the local artwork that Freshies was known for would be living on in the new iteration of the cafe, and artists were encouraged to drop in to the cafe for more information on how to get their creations displayed in-store.

Freshies is open from 8am to 4pm Monday to Saturday.

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