Refurbished Style Acre Tea Room due to reopen on Friday 1st December, 2023

The works to extend the kitchen at the Style Acre Tea Room and provide new toilet facilities are on track and the Tea Room will be opening on Friday 1st December.

Our Tea Room is based within the grounds of Savages Farm Shop in Blewbury. Since 2010, the local community has been enjoying our food and drink and people we support have been undertaking work placements. 14 people we support currently work or volunteer at the Tea Room. Some people are long term paid employees and some undertake shorter work experience placements to gain catering and customer service skills and to develop their confidence before moving on to other placements.

Over the 13 years that we have been trading the Tea Room has become busier and the kitchen facilities had become too small. Over the past couple of months work has been done to extend the building to improve the working environment and create additional space so that more people we support can gain work experience and people with more complex needs and physical disabilities can access work placements.

By having more space, people we support who need their own support worker, or who need extra space to work due to their physical or sensory needs will be able to participate. With a larger space we can also create an additional work placement baking cakes on the premises. This will add to our supply of cakes that are currently made by our baking group at our Didcot community hub. The new space will also allow greater flexibility to develop new services such as catering for events which could also create new work opportunities for people we support.

We will also open with new toilet facilities which are more accessible and family friendly. Improved accessible toilet facilities will mean that the Tea Room becomes a more inclusive place to eat and drink, as well as a more inclusive place to work.

We can’t wait to open on the 1st December and welcome customers back into the Tea Room and welcome back our staff and people we support. We will also be hosting an official opening on Saturday 16th December at 11am, where Tim Henman OBE will officially open the Tea Room, 13 years after he opened the Tea Room when we first started trading. It is wonderful to be able to invite him back and showcase the new facilities. This is an open event and we would love to see you there.