Students Take Over Saddle Room Cafe!

Chefs of the future are gaining some real hands on experience after Walsall College jumped at the opportunity to take over the running of Walsall Leather Museum’s cafe.

Hospitality and catering students will be taking it in turns to join College staff in preparing meals and helping to run the popular Saddle Room cafe, which attracts hundreds of visitors every week.

Talented students based at the College’s Wisemore Campus, which is located next door to the museum, took over the running of the cafe at the beginning of this month and say it has been going really well so far.

Laura Ratcliffe, Commercial Academy Manager at Walsall College commented: “Walsall College is uniquely and proudly vocational, and operates a number of commercial businesses, offering students real life work experience.

“Experience in the cafe, along with working in the College’s renowned Jerome’s Restaurant, gives students the hands-on skills they need for success in the hospitality and catering industry.

“The students have risen to the challenge of running the prestigious Saddle Room cafe extremely well, preparing and serving a range of high quality food and drinks. Our aim is to provide customers with the best possible food and service, so they will return to us time and time again.”

The cafe is open alongside the museum from 10am to 5pm Tuesday to Saturday (April – October) and 10am to 4pm (November-March).

Mike Glasson, Leather Museum Curator, said: “We are delighted that our neighbours at Walsall College have taken over the running of the cafe.

“We are particularly proud that we will be helping students training to be chefs to gain some hands on experience of working in a busy kitchen and hopefully it will give then a head start when job hunting later on.”