The staff at the Southgate Street store
“Back then, we would have two members of staff working non-stop just cutting bacon. They couldn’t cut it fast enough. We were selling six tonnes of bacon a week.” Where there was bacon there were sausages too, “We decided to make our own sausages because we wanted to create our own quality brand,” Mr Clingan said. “From there, came our other products, the scotch eggs, the sausage rolls and so on. We were always developing what we sold to meet the needs of our customers.We still are.” By 1990, Farmhouse Deli was operating from the original Northgate Street store and in Eastgate Market with John’s five children, Sue, Caroline, Jenny, Jo and Rob, along with his wife Emma, all working in the stores at various points. Then a chance came to move across the street and next door to Sainsbury’s, into the shop they still occupy today. In 2012, the opportunity came to move into Cheltenham and take the Farmhouse Deli into a new market on the Strand in the town’s High Street. And, five years later, the Indoor Market operation was moved into much larger premises in Southgate Street, where like the Cheltenham store, the family
restaurant called The Top Spot. It was a place Mr Clingan called a “restaurant by day and frothy coffee shop at night”.
A place still fondly remembered by some of his customers now, the Top Spot fell victim to a compulsory purchase order, when King’s Square was first overhauled in 1968. New premises were sought and 61 Northgate Street – opposite the current Farmhouse Deli – was secured. The rest is history. “Northgate Street was the hub of the city and we couldn’t keep up with demand,” Mr Clingan said. “So we also opened in the Eastgate Indoor Market, where we traded for the next 45 years. “At 8am each morning, we had to keep the doors locked and try to sneak the staff in, because people were queuing down the street. “It was an age when the customer would go out and do all of their shopping in provisions shops. “They would be buying a couple of pounds each of bacon and sausages and a large boiling joint every week.
12 | September 2019 | www. punchline-gloucester .com
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