10 minutes with... John and Renata Strange

John and Renata Strange established the Crossing Point café just under two years ago and have seen the reputation of their establishment skyrocket.

Having withstood a downturn in business in the wake of Storm Desmond, the couple weathered the storm and took home a Gold Award in the “Independent Café” category at the café Life awards.

They were speaking to in-Cumbria as part of the “10 Minutes With” series.

So, what is Crossing Point café?

John: “The whole idea behind Crossing Point was to take the idea of a café and to give it more of a modern makeover, not to be different for the sake of it, but to create a kind of crossover between a restaurant and a café.

“As well as having a wine list, we have a wine shop and a humidor which we stock full of Cuban and Havana cigars which is something you wouldn’t expect to see in a café.

“The whole idea was that we could be somewhere if you wanted a cup of tea and a scone then that’s great and it will all be local produce, the tea is blended locally and the coffee is Carvetii coffee which is an award winning roastery in Embleton in Cockermouth.

“We pull in from the area and use local produce and give the guests a different take on a café that extremely unique but that is unique for originality and an experience rather than just a talking point.”

Giving up the city life

John: “I’m from Belfast and Renata is from Slovakia.

“We came here purely by accident.”

Renata: “We were living in Manchester and we were living the city life and then John was approached by Simon Rogan and we made the radical decision to move to Cartmel.

“I was working in financial services and found another job in Kendal for a year while John was working with Simon and then I think we slowly realised we wanted our own place so we started looking.

“We found Kirkby Lonsdale and the rest is history.”

When did you establish the café?

Renata: “We are coming up on two years now.

"We found the former Cariad building in the summer of 2014, and then we bought the business shortly after.

"We closed for three weeks because we did all of the makeover work and all the plastering and DIY work ourselves.

“It was definitely worthwhile and we opened on the 17th of November in 2014, so it will be two years in a month’s time.”

John: “I’ve been in this industry my whole life and Renata has dipped her toes in and out, while it has been tough it’s been massively rewarding.

“We got married in November last year and then literally from then we had the massive floods in Cumbria and our trade just died off completely.

"It was a very worrying time with nobody coming through the doors of any local businesses. It was scary for everyone.

“It was a very hard time to start a business and we’ve won a couple of accolades since then and it’s going from strength to strength.”

Why did you set up your own business?

John: “There’s no one particular reason why because I’ve literally been in this industry since I was a child, my mum and dad used to own a hotel and I always wanted to open my own place.

“We both wanted a better work-life balance and to spend more time together and you can’t really do that when you’re working up to 17 hours a day for someone else.

“One of the frustrations of running a restaurant or a hotel is that you’re limited in your autonomy.

"But with cafés it’s a much more relaxed atmosphere and we thought we could really bring it into the modern era as well as including our love of food and old fashioned hospitality.”

Cumbria’s culinary resurgence

John: “We won the gold award for independent café of the year at the Café Life awards which is a national competition and we went down to London for the award ceremony.

“At the time we found out we had been shortlisted we hadn’t even been open for 18 months, and we were over the moon, we’re still bouncing from now.”

Renata: “Because it’s a national award, it just means the world to us.

"When we were shortlisted we got very excited and there were three nominees in London, one in Manchester, one in Edinburgh and us in Kirkby Lonsdale.

“It was very rewarding really”

John: “It’s great to see people like Kevin Tickle, who used to be my head chef when I was running Rogan’s in Cartmel.

"He's a great friend and hearing that he’s been awarded a Michelin star when I know just how hard he’s worked for it is just incredible.

“Then you’ve got Hrishikesh at The Gilpin and Nick at The Samling as well."

Bringing more people to the county

John: “We get phone calls now from down south who might have visited the lakes quite a bit and have visited Forest Side or l’Enclume and they’ve spoken to people who have recommended here.

“The beautiful thing about Cumbria is that it’s a very close knit community and people will recommend different places to go and we all benefit from tourists coming up to here, Keswick, Windermere or wherever.”

Future plans

John: “We’ve got a few wee things in the pipeline but because the café’s so young we just want to work on it and keep people coming back to it and build it further.”

Renata: “I couldn’t agree more, so although we feel like we’ve had it for longer, we’re still building it and tweaking it inside and out.

“We are constantly improving the shop and there’s still a lot more to do in the next three or four years.”