Bristol café entrepreneurs and chefs Mike Merelie and Evan Roberts have opened their second Whisk! café. . . in the unusual setting of a graveyard.
The chefs launched their first café at the Knowle West Health Park just before Christmas and have now taken over the reins from volunteers at Arnos Vale who had served light refreshments from trestle tables at the cemetery’s Grade-II listed Spielman Centre for the past two years.
Mike Merelie admitted that they been met with quizzical looks when they had first mooted the possibility of taking over the cemetery’s Atrium Café last year. "But," he said, “as well as still being a working cemetery Arnos Vale is a living, breathing heritage site which attracts hundreds of people a week from mums and dads with small children to family history buffs, amateur photographers and even a zumba class.
“There are frequent educational visits, it’s a bird watchers’ paradise and the two restored chapels stage music recitals and host community events.
“With hundreds of visitors, local residents and workers from the ITV studios and Paintworks site just across the road, we are hoping the Atrium café will prove just as successful as our Knowle West venture.”
The lunch menu includes classic sandwiches on Pullin’s bread, freshly grilled paninis, salads, charcuterie, frittata and homemade soup with soda bread. The café is also licensed to serve drinks from Bristol Beer Factory and Ashton Press along with continental lagers and a selection of wines by the glass and by the bottle.
Arnos Vale is the only known restored example of a Victorian, Arcadian garden cemetery. Some 300,000 people were buried or cremated there from ordinary Bristol families to social reformers such as Raja Rammohun Roy. The entire site was weeks from being bulldozed during long, drawn out planning disputes in the 80s and 90s but the city council’s decision to compulsorily purchase the cemetery followed by a £5.2m grant from the lottery heritage fund has helped preserve it for future generations.
Mike Merelie said: “We are developing a business model which we believe works especially well in sites like this which require a degree of consideration and sensitivity in terms of approach.
“Hopefully Arnos Vale will be the first of a series of satellite stations working around our hub at the Knowle West Health Park. We are already looking at several other likely sites across the city and expect to open more before the end of the year.”
Juliette Randall, chief executive at Arnos Vale Cemetery, said: “We are delighted to have formed a partnership with Whisk! who clearly share our passion and appreciate the importance of Arnos Vale Cemetery to the local and wider Bristol community. Whisk! have transformed the café space and early feedback from our visitors about the quality of food and setting has been fantastic.”
