Huge plans for the third Marmadukes cafe in Sheffield, which will have an artisanal bakery, grocery store and party cakes

The wait for the beautiful building to come back to life was longer than expected due to the restrictions and bans from Covid-19. But after 12 months of hard work and delays, Clare is now hoping the third Marmadukes will open in time for the return of indoor hospitality on May 17th.

Clare and her husband Tim have big plans for their third company, which is ‘Sustainable’ based on the ‘Best Made’ motto that helped make Marmadukes a success.

“Marmadukes is the amalgamation of my passions: food, design, property and family,” explains Clare.

Log In to our daily newsletter

The i newsletter Cut through the noise

Marmadukes on Cambridge Street. Image Scott Merrylees

The new location will have an artisanal bakery, a grocery store with a waste-free area, an oat milk pharmacy and a pastry shop on the ground floor with a separate entrance, which will also make “party cakes”. and when the weather permits, the drive to the side of the building is used for outdoor barbecues.

The Marmadukes team is also planning to purchase a popular milk float that they will use to transport their food and drink offerings to communities across Sheffield.

In addition to the breakfast, brunch and coffee options that Marmadukes has become known for, the new venue will also have a fully equipped restaurant that serves food from day to night.

“The menu here could be a little more fluid so we can use what we have in the bakery and in the fridge,” explained Clare, adding that they have also been granted an event license, which means they can host up to 19 events can be a period of 12 months.

Marmadukes II on the new Groverner development in Sheffield city center

“We want this to be a multifunctional space and all of the furniture to be removable so the space can be changed as needed,” she said.

Clare plans to use the space for weddings and has already received requests to hold 50th and 60th birthday celebrations there.

She would like to emphasize that the sorting office should be a “common space in which people feel comfortable and as if it really belongs to them”.

As with the second Marmadukes café on Cambridge Street, which opened last January, there is a lot of interest in their Sorting Office project.

In front of the first Marmadukes Cafe

Those familiar with the former Sorting Office site will be delighted to hear that it has been restored, not altered, and retains its charm and character.

“We are trying to improve what is already there and recycle what we can,” said Clare, adding, “We wanted to keep some of the building’s integrity.”

The fall lights that illuminated busy postal workers are now used to illuminate the busy bakers, baristas and cooks of Marmadukes, who will walk on the same floor as the building’s predecessors due to the original floor.

Located along the length and width of the expansive room in Marmadukes III, Clare says the kitchen will be “pretty radically open”.

Clare and Tim Nye in front of the new Marmadukes. on. Ecclesall Rd. Picture Scott Merrylees

When looking around the beautifully light and airy new space, it’s pretty obvious that every single detail has been carefully researched and considered before being selected.

From the oat cream color on the walls, which Clare says was chosen to evoke thoughts of bread and its “earthy feel”, to the recycled bricks from Denmark on the Marmadukes counters, evoking their environmental ethos.

“We want sustainability to be the foundation of the business,” she said.

As expected, the Marmadukes food stocks were also taken into account.

“We source all of our products from farms, have always used free-range eggs and meat, and have spent a lot of money on recycling and sustainability,” said Clare.

One of the producers selected by Marmadukes is Estate Dairy butter, which the company claims comes from a herd of Guernsey cows that are sustainably raised on over 500 acres of idyllic Somerset pastures. Moss Valley Meat, based in Moss Valley on the Sheffield / Derbyshire border, has been in the same family for four generations, and cheese from renowned London cheese merchant Neal’s Yard.

Marmadukes on Cambridge Street. Image Scott Merrylees

“We try to source locally where we can, but some of the best producers are based in London and the South,” said Clare.

Customers can purchase an assortment of the products at the Marmadukes grocery store, and Clare says there will also be a table set in the center of the property laden with delicious breads, fresh tomatoes, cheese and “all that delicious” fillings “they want for a sandwich.

Clare acknowledges that Marmadukes’ groceries are expensive due to their ethos of stocking up on “sustainable” products, but adds that the food culture in this country means that value often takes precedence over quality.

She said, “When you go to places like Italy, they spend a fair percentage of their salary on food and eating. They’ll go to markets and want to hear who made the products and want to know where they came from. That’s not really a thing here. ”

“We don’t want it to be just a bakery. It’s been a long journey for me, my background is nutrition and dietetics. I’m very interested in gut health and what bread means, ”she explained.

“We have a long history of real junk bread in this country, and it dates back to the post-war era and the fact that people got fed up.”

Clare attributes Britain’s contemporary bread-making culture to the Chorleywood process, a method founded in 1961 that focuses on quick production and long shelf life.

She believes that this often results in a product that is “of no nutritional value” and the reason people believe you can’t eat bread is because “it’s not good quality”.

“It’s almost a blocking agent,” she said.

Clare is passionate about making her bakery something different, and Marmadukes has been given the opportunity to bake bread with Wildfarmed Grain, an Andy Cato agricultural project aimed at helping arable farmers grow wheat without chemicals while keeping the soil closed protect time.

Born in Barnsley, Andy started Wildfarmed after moving to a 100 acre farm in Gascony, France, and started using minimal effort methods that allow different plants to grow together.

Wildfarmed works with artisanal bakeries across the country and Marmadukes will be the first place in Sheffield to have access to their grain.

“They are so good at what they do and they are such a professional team of people,” said Clare, adding, “It’s more expensive but it’s what we want to do because it’s unique and special , but also because it brings people together. ” the environmental and sustainability aspects that we want to convey to our customers as a message about who we are. “

“Your grains have health benefits, but it’s not just about health, it’s the environment, too,” Clare said, adding that it is helpful because of the way that grains, wheat, and grass grow symbiotic together for benefits The soil and the surrounding area instead of damaging them with chemicals.

Under the agreement with Wildfarmed, Marmadukes will have the pleasure of welcoming artisan baker Cindy Zurias, who trained in Michelin-starred restaurants and ran one of the UK’s largest artisanal bakeries, as an advisory baker while setting up their new bakery becomes.

“Cindy will be working with us … we were very lucky to have her. She is one of the UK’s finest sourdough bakers after working at Little Bread Pedlar [in Bermondsey, London]. They make amazing bread, ”said Clare.

Cindy will be on hand to train the Marmadukes bakers as the sorting bureau’s website welcomes customers for the first time.

Marmadukes will also host four people from the youngest cohort of students at the School of Artisan Food, an internationally renowned school and charity based in Welbeck, Nottinghamshire, that prides itself on helping “people from all walks of life learn to be healthy, sustainable and healthy delicious meal. “

Clare says they will come aboard starting May 10 this year, before the sorting office opens to the public.

Clare and Tim opened the first Marmadukes cafe on Norfolk Row more than eight years ago. The couple decided to take the plunge and create the kind of cafe they’d always wanted after Tim retired from the Derbyshire police force in 2010 after spending 32 years as a detective on the police force.

Clare says Marmadukes’ logo of a bear riding a bicycle depicts them as a couple.

She explained, “He’s the bike and I’m the bear. He helps me get where I want to go. After we had kids, they were always my priority. They came first, while my husband was always a demanding one Career. After that he retired, it seemed like the right time to try it out. I didn’t think we’d do it now. “

Clare and Tim Nye in front of the new Marmadukes. on. Ecclesall Rd. Picture Scott MerryleesTim Nye, pictured with his wife Clare, TJ, Catherine and Will, outside the second Marmadukes cafe. Image: Marie Caley NSST-08-07-19-Marmadukes-3Cindy Zurias