Smithills: Cafe 'over the moon' with alcohol licence

The Northern Ivy Cafe opened close to the corner of Church Road and Ivy Road last year.

Owners John Oakley and Kelly Oakley, the couple from Darcy Lever behind the business, wanted to build on its success with an application for an alcohol licence and for permission to play music into the night.

The business closes at 4pm on weekdays and an hour earlier on weekends at the moment but the couple wanted to extend this to 10pm every day of the week with the aim of it becoming a bistro as well as a cafe.

A care home two doors down from The Northern Ivy Cafe, Spennymoor Care Home Ltd, wrote to the council out of concern for its 20 or so elderly residents, some of whom receive dementia care and end-of-life care. The manager from the care home asked councillors to refuse the application out of concern for issues such as crime and disorder.

But a meeting of the council licensing committee last week led councillors to approve the application.

Afterwards Mrs Oakley told The Bolton News: "We're over the moon. We got the chance to speak to the manager from the care home and it cleared up some things.

"They're a bit concerned it would be all night every night but that's not the plan. It's going to be exclusive nights, once or twice a month, then we'll take it from there."

Mrs Oakley explained the intention is for the exclusive nights to run a set menu for a small number of the cafe's customers. The cafe's customers are now able to order a drink with their food during the day as well.

The owner expressed her hope it will be a boost to The Northern Ivy Cafe after a "brilliant" start to its time in Smithills.

She said: "It's been brilliant. 

"In the last two months we've gone through the roof, it's been really busy, really busy."

This article was written by Jack Tooth. To contact him, email jack.tooth@newsquest.co.uk or follow @JTRTooth on Twitter.