Established on a family farm that was bought by Karl Avison’s great grandparents, Jack and Elizabeth in 1919 and subsequently farmed by Karl’s grandad, Eddie then dad, Colin, Cedarbarn Farm Shop and Café began as a small PYO strawberries business in 1995 and has grown into a much-loved destination that is enjoyed by all ages.
Since those early days, we have grown the business with our customers. By 2007, demand for our PYO fruit had grown to such an extent that it was time to replace the trusty PYO caravan with something more permanent and the original Cedarbarn Farm Shop and Café was built. With a 40 seater café and space to sell a range of food and drink from other Yorkshire producers in addition to our home-grown fruit and vegetables and home-reared Aberdeen Angus beef, the original Yorkshire farm shop was born. We added the bespoke butchery counter in 2009.
Word spread quickly about this new farm shop and cafe that offered a true taste of Yorkshire. In 2010, we were invited to supply asparagus for Her Majesty The Queen’s visit to Scarborough and in 2015, our gooseberries (along with Farmer Karl and daughter, Chloe) were made famous when they appeared on James Martin’s Home Comforts BBC TV programme.
The next milestone came in 2016 when we developed our play area and opened the miniature railway to enhance our appeal to families of all ages. We think that it’s important for children to see where their food comes from and what better way to do this by trundling through fruit fields on a train before picking your own fresh fruit? The ‘Flying Yorkshireman’ travels around the PYO plot on a 600m track and is a real hit with visitors young and old.
By 2018, we had outgrown the original farm shop and café, so we built an extension that gave us an additional 40 covers in the café and doubled the size of the shop to add a larger deli counter and a small gifting area to showcase even more Yorkshire producers.
These days, our fabulous team welcomes thousands of visitors a month and makes over 1000 meals a week for our café and farm shop (including a range of 25 of our ‘Café Favourites as ready meals). We have over 100 Yorkshire products in our shop and our PYO fields boast over 20,000 strawberry plants, 30 varieties of apples and 2,500 pumpkin plants, to name but a few.
Who knows where the next few years will take us as we approach our 30th anniversary?
