Customers enjoy free pasties at the opening of the new Carrs Pasties on Manchester Road

The first lucky 250 customers were given free pasty vouchers to celebrate the official opening of the new Manchester Road store.

Next door to the original shop, Carrs converted a car wash into the newest of their four Bolton stores. The bakery needed more space for customers and staff, as well as a bigger kitchen to keep up with the demand.

Since opening their first store in 1938, Carrs Pasties have established a fantastic reputation across Bolton. Throughout the building of the new store the Carrs felt it was important to keep the work within the town.

Managing director and youngest of the Carr brothers, Joe Carr, said: “We’ve used local suppliers throughout from the contractors, our electrician, we used a Bolton architect, we used a project manager who was from Bolton, and we just weren’t interested in using anything else because there’s so much talent in Bolton. There’s no point spreading the wealth anywhere else, and they have done an amazing job.

“I couldn’t be any happier with the way that this has gone. It has been so smooth, the journey from start to finish.”

When first buying their new property, the family were interested in making it into a drive-thru.

“We did look at having a drive through at first but once we put the footprint down we realised that there wasn’t enough space for a drive through,” Joe added: “a drive-thru is never off the cards, we may have plans in the future but nothing immediate.”

During the opening, the new cheese and jalapeno pasty was officially launched following its huge success at the Bolton Food Festival last month.

Joe said: “Bolton food festival was unbelievable. By far the best response we had was to our cheese and jalapeno pasty. We had to work more hours in the factory just to keep up with the demand in the town centre!

“Most people have said ‘forget about the shop, when are the new cheese and jalapeno pasties coming out?’”

Head of customer service at Carrs, Keith O’Hara added: “The food festival was amazing. It was relatively quiet during the day but as soon as the sun started to mellow a little bit we’d get busier and busier because people were having a pasty or a sausage roll with their pints.

“They were sitting there in the evening sunshine listening to the music, it was fabulous.”

Over the years, Carrs Pasties have acquired a few familiar faces within their fan base, from regular customer Peter Kay to Sara Cox who brought a piece of her native Bolton to her wedding in London through the medium of Carrs Pasties. Chris Evans is also an avid fan of their pasties after trying one at a celebrity golf match. Evans enjoyed it so much that he wrote about Carrs in the Sunday Mail the following day.

Carrs Pasties are offering even more free pasties to their first 250 customers at the new Manchester Road store tomorrow.