Good honest food at a good honest price is what the Examiner had to say about The Old Shop Café at our Birchencliffe Garden Centre. Read for yourself to see what journalist Andrew Baldwin had to say!

Blooming lovely eating out spot...

THEY say that when one door closes, another opens. We had originally planned on going somewhere else. But our intended destination unaccountably wanted to keep business to a minimum on a Sunday lunchtime, restricting the menu to light snacks and bites.

Not enough for the starving hungry like us. What now? Cooking at home was something we most decidedly did not want to do. Stuck for somewhere else to go, I reflected on a recent conversation in the pub.

A chap there, knowing I have the job of going around the area eating on behalf of Examiner readers (someone’s got to do it),had mentioned Armitage’s Garden Centre at Birchencliffe.“Go there,” he said, “it’s lovely. All right, they only do three or four hot meals, but they’re beautiful. We’ve always liked it.”

We weren’t in any immediate need of grass seed, bulbs or shears. But it seemed as good a place to go as any. In truth, it did not entirely surprise us that this place came highly rated. My father-in-law aged 80 has always sworn by garden centre cafes and on our visits to his Derbyshire home we have made many a trip to them.

Arriving just after one o’clock at Armitage’s, we wandered through the gift section and up to where we were going to eat. “Why’s it called the Old Shop Cafe,” I asked. “Look on the walls, you idiot,” came the reply from long-suffering wife, eyes rolling upwards.Once again I had missed out on the title Mr Observant. On display were photos of an old Armitage’s shop and a few artefacts from the past, reflecting more than 150 years since the business began in Huddersfield.

It’s self service in this cafe. Customers queue at the food counter and, if having a hot meal, decide what they want to eat and then wait at their table until it is brought. The selection on offer included broccoli and cauliflower quiche (£3.95), meat and potato pie (£5.25) or pork in a mustard sauce (also £5.25). It all looked very tempting on the hot plate behind the glass screen.I had to have Sunday roast (£5.95), which on this day was some very nice looking beef. My wife was won over by the moussaka and salad (£5.25).

The dishes arrived at our table within a couple of minutes, during which I had time to examine the photo of an Armitage’s shop from way back. Its wares were piled high at the front and I noticed that one of them was called Slug Death. They told it like it was in those days, I thought. My beef was tender and full of flavour. What’s more there was a lot of it. It came with lashings of gravy that I could not quite finish off. My wife has a theory that southerners like me don’t deserve gravy because we don’t have the technique to eat it up.

The vegetables — peas, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower — were very well cooked and there was a Yorkshire as well. There were some roast potatoes on the plate and the waitress came a minute or so later with a bowl of boiled potatoes, admitting she had forgotten to put them on. I would never have noticed the omission. My wife’s moussaka turned out to be an outstanding choice, helped in no small way by its aubergine and tender lamb mince. We weren’t in a rush to leave so couldn’t resist going back up to the counter to look at the desserts, spied by us earlier.

Our blackcurrant cheesecake and apple pie with cream (£2.50 each) hit the spot and we weren’t disappointed by them.
Alcohol turned out to be an easy choice — there wasn’t any. So we washed it down with an elderflower presse and a rhubarb
and ginger drink. We felt that Armitage’s is selling excellent fresh food, well presented. The staff are really friendly and seem to enjoy working there.

Haute cuisine? No. A get-dressed-up occasion? No. Good honest food at a good honest price? Yes. As we left we spotted the man from the pub, happily putting his words into action and tucking in to a meal with his family. “Told you I liked it,” he said.

Written by Andrew Baldwin and published in Huddersfield Examiner 25th May 2007. Reproduced courtsey of Huddersfield Examiner