Tuckton café Mocha Turtle to undergo rebrand to pantry

Mocha Turtle will close its doors next week before reopening in October as The Little Pantry.

The coastal themed café in Tuckton Road will be transformed to become a pantry style farm shop, boasting local produce and sustainability.

While hailing Mocha Turtle a success, owner Rosie Hodgkinson said she wanted a change after 12 years.

She said: “We’re changing it into a pantry style farm shop. There’s definitely a demand for something like that in Tuckton.

“This will be an absolutely different type of place, but the Mocha Turtle coffee will still be there.

"That is important as our coffee is very lovely, and we want people to know they can still get coffees and sit in, there will just be other types of food rather than a café menu.

“We’ll use local produce, and we’ve got an in house baker, so they’ll be doing cakes and savoury bits.”

Mocha Turtle in Tuckton Road (Image: NQ)

The Little Pantry will also use and sell produce from a company co-founded by a famous face.

Rosie added: “There's a thing called wild farming, which is sustainable farming. One of the guys from Groove Armada (Andy Cato) is part of this company called Wildfarmed.

“They provide Wildfarmed flour, and we’ll be stocking it, and also baking with it. I think we’ll be the only place in the area with it.

“That’s something we’re really happy to be involved with.”

Speaking on the new look for The Little Pantry, Rosie said: “We’ll make it very rustic looking. We’ll be reusing a load of the wood - we want to keep everything sustainable.”

Mocha Turtle, in its current form, will close on September 13.

Rosie hopes it will only take a few weeks to transform the site, and plans to officially open The Little Pantry in October.

She already has big plans for her new venture, including using it for events, workshops and tasting menus.

Ros said: “There’s so much potential.”