The Cow Shed Cafe in Stuston is the place to honour farming legacy
A business owner has opened the doors to her new cafe, honouring her father’s farming history.
Hannah Laurie opened The Cow Shed on Place Farm in Stuston on Tuesday, offering comforting dishes with a healthy twist.
The idea for the venture came about after the death of her father, Jimmy, in 2023.
“We already had a cafe in one of my other businesses on the site, Roots Activity Centre, but it was not really working as a cafe for people without children,” said Hannah.
“So, when my dad died, I wanted to do something in the building where the herd was kept when the farm he owned all his life was a dairy farm. It snowballed from there.”
Hannah, who also owns Peacock Montessori Nursery on the farm, said she wants the cafe to pride itself on having a community feel and being a place where everyone can go to relax, eat, drink and socialise.
Another passion of the cafe owner is to source her ingredients using very few food miles.
She said: “We have 16,000 hens over the road for our eggs, a great farm shop with a butcher, a baker on site as well as West Farm Produce for our herbs and salad.
“With food cooked on site using these fantastic ingredients, we feel that is really important as customers want to have less miles on their meals, know where their food is coming from as well as supporting the farmers in our area.”
Food on the menu includes breakfast staples such as a full English and an allotment breakfast, toasties, jacket potatoes and cakes and sweet treats.
The cafe even has its own logo and mascot, Snoop the cow, which Hannah bought the rights for from Brighton artist John Marshall.
“We want to make the farm a destination place, not just for food, but also for the site’s other businesses,” she said.
“With the cafe, it has been a long process but it is a really exciting time and we thank all the people who have helped to spread the word.”
The Cow Shed is open every day, from 8am to 4.30pm, apart from Saturdays, when it closed at 12.30pm.