THE STORY (SO FAR..)
Our story starts with our Director, Louis. Disillusioned with the idea of corporate life, the Life Café brand was born in 2016 as an alternative to the canteen situated in his local college. With his experience of working at various hospitality providers the venture went from strength to strength resulting in winning a contract for our flagship site in Macclesfield.
With grit, determination and desire to grow the brand, several sites followed and the team around Louis grew. Now operating in the heart of several northern communities and being awarded the contract to operate two Cafés in the largest municipal park in Europe!
Here’s where it steps up a gear; with not only Cafés on the agenda we were now at the helm of a number of boating operations, with the focus of optimising our customers' experience across multiple elements of their visit to the park.
Restaurant-quality food was introduced as part of our immersive dining domes experience , in partnership with Lightopia Festival – A concept that has since continued as a popular dining attraction at our Lakeside venue in Heaton Park, Manchester.
With the exponential expansion of Cafés up and down the UK, located in community parks, leisure centres and some of the UK’s most picturesque destinations, logically we thought what next?
That’s where the metaphorical jewel in our crown comes in - we were now proud owners of a holiday resort in the heart of North Devon. We evolved into Life Cafés & Resorts. A woodland escape by the sea, we were now able to cater thousands of holidaymakers each year in creating memories for a lifetime… Until our first major roadblock.
Just like the rest of the world, our lives were turned upside down overnight as lockdown restrictions came into force as a result of ‘you know what’. We learnt a lot over the next year or two and enabled us to take a step back and truly appreciate how deeply embedded we were across several communities and the importance of our green spaces in bringing one another together.
As time went on and restrictions lifted we slowly got back to normality and continued on our journey, adding new venues in both urban parks and health and leisure spaces.
We now stand as a team of 300+ people spread across the length and breadth of the UK, have blossoming relationships with our clients and customers and have donated tens of thousands to community projects.
Our ambitions don’t end there, this is just the beginning of our journey and we can’t wait to see what the coming years have in store for us!