Lego cafe, balloon champion, Come From Away - Issue #010
This week in Shrewsbury: a Lego cafe on its way to the Quarry, a world champion bringing his title home, and an October the town can walk straight into. Welcome to The Bridge.
Thanks for reading The Bridge — made here in Shrewsbury, and free for everyone who reads it.
— The Town This Week —
Brick & Beyond is bringing a Lego cafe to the Quarry
Elephant & Co, the Shrewsbury group behind the move. Photo: Elephant & Co.
A Telford cafe that filled up within months of opening is crossing the county to Shrewsbury. Brick & Beyond, run by Kayleigh and Mark Parsons, opened in The Quad in May and quickly outgrew it, moving to bigger premises on Ironbridge High Street; now it is opening a second home in the old Quarry Kitchen at the Quarry Swimming & Fitness Centre, with the hospitality group The Elephant & Co.
It is a building cafe as much as a coffee one — the bricks are the point — and it lands in the middle of the town’s best-known park.
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— Town Wins —
Dominic Bareford has won his second world hot air balloon title
Dominic Bareford. Photo: UK Competition Ballooning.
The Oswestry pilot topped the table at the FAI World Hot Air Balloon Championship in Krosno, Poland, flying five tasks last month against 101 other pilots. He first won in 2018, and has now matched his father David, who is also a double world champion.
Headway Shropshire has reopened its hub after a £600,000 refit
Headway Shropshire. Photo: Headway Shropshire.
The brain injury charity has rebuilt its Shrewsbury base with a wheelchair-accessible kitchen, an art room and an IT suite, helped by £475,000 from the National Lottery Community Fund. The building first opened in 2002 and had not been touched since.
Marshall Harmony has been highly commended for best business
Laura Davies and Ellie Tapper with the award certificate. Photo: Laura Davies.
Laura Davies started the Ironbridge recruitment firm at her kitchen table in 2021, after more than two decades in the industry. It now has a team of nine and has placed more than 250 people, and it is the first Shropshire business recognised in the Best Business category at the Enterprise Vision Awards.
Spice Heaven has been named Best Restaurant of the Year
Spice Heaven, Whitchurch. Image: Spice Heaven.
The Whitchurch restaurant took the title at this year’s Curry Life Awards, twenty-five years after it opened, with the same head chef in the kitchen throughout. Its owner says the regulars who bring their families back are the reward that matters most.
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— Someone Worth Knowing —
Mike Whitehurst, who has fed Shropshire’s events for a living
Takefood Event Catering, Shifnal. Photo: Takefood.
Mike Whitehurst started out waiting tables at 11 and went to London to cook; he set up Takefood Event Catering in 2009 and runs it from Shifnal Industrial Estate, feeding weddings, corporate lunches and civic dinners across the Midlands.
Alongside it he makes his own jams and spices — jalapeño chilli and rose petal among the jams, a full English breakfast blend among the spices — sold through his website and at Jackson’s butchers in Shifnal.
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— What People Are Talking About —
The Grindley Sporting motorbike has come home to Prees
The exhibition at the Grocott Heritage Centre in Prees. Photo: Grocott Group.
The village has its best-known machine back. Billy Grindley built between 25 and 30 sports motorcycles at his garage on Shrewsbury Street in Prees, from 1922 until the war, and one of them, the Grindley Sporting, ended up at the National Motorcycle Museum in Solihull. This month it is back in Prees on loan, on show at the Grocott Heritage Centre on Station Road with photographs of the Grindley family and their racing.
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— What’s On —
The Mayor’s Taste of Asia brings the town’s restaurants together
At Smithy’s Bar, Shrewsbury Town Football Club, on Sunday 18 October · 12pm–6pm
→ Get tickets · + Add to calendar
The Mayor’s Taste of Asia. Image: Shrewsbury Town Council.
The first Mayor’s Taste of Asia puts the town’s Thai, Vietnamese, Nepalese, Indian, Sri Lankan and Turkish kitchens in one room, serving sample-sized plates, with drinks from Rad Beer and Rowton Vineyard. It is raising money for the Mayor’s four charities — Shropshire Mental Health Support, Lingen Davies, the Shrewsbury Town FC Foundation and Little Stars — and tickets, £20 including £10 of tokens, close at noon on Thursday 15 October.
Shrewsbury Musical Theatre Company stage Come From Away
At Theatre Severn, from Thursday 15 to Saturday 17 October
→ Get tickets · + Add to calendar
Come From Away. Photo: Theatre Severn.
The Shropshire premiere of the Broadway and West End musical, staged by the town’s own musical theatre company, tells how a small town in Newfoundland took in 7,000 stranded passengers when American airspace closed on 11 September 2001.
Vonda Shepard brings her greatest hits to Shrewsbury
At Theatre Severn, on Tuesday 13 October · 7.30pm
→ Get tickets · + Add to calendar
Vonda Shepard. Photo: Theatre Severn.
The singer known to a generation as the voice of Ally McBeal brings her greatest hits and fan favourites to the smaller of the theatre’s two rooms. Tickets £38.50, and it runs an hour and fifty minutes with an interval.
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That is the week: the town’s restaurants in one room on the Sunday, Come From Away on the main stage from Thursday, and Vonda Shepard in the Walker on the Tuesday. Three evenings in town, every one of them better with company.
Every event in town, one message away.
What’s on in Shrewsbury whenever you ask — tonight, the weekend, something for the kids. For anyone, and free.
1. Start the chat — One tap — the first message is already written for you.
2. Add your interests — Music, walks, the kids, the theatre — and how often you want to hear.
3. Ask, get answers that fit — What’s on tonight? Anything this weekend? It answers for you.
Nothing to install.
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— Babies & Toddler —
Halloween messy play for the under-fives
At Bayston Hill Memorial Hall, on Wednesday 14 October · 9.45am–11am
→ See dates · + Add to calendar
Messy play. Photo: Ready Steady Let’s Get Messy.
Ready Steady Let’s Get Messy brings its Halloween party to the hall for children from six months to five years: messy play, crafts and a party bag to take home. A change of clothes is a good idea, for the grown-ups as much as anyone.
Halloween at Apley opens the pumpkin fields
At Apley Farm Shop, from Saturday 10 to Saturday 31 October · 10am–4pm
→ See the dates · + Add to calendar
Halloween at Apley. Image: Apley Farm Shop.
Pumpkin picking, a spooky trail and half-term things to do on the Apley estate, with the last entry each day at 3pm and the farm shop and cafe alongside.
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— Holding It Together —
The Staying Connected Fund has up to £5,000 for groups tackling loneliness. The Community Foundation for Staffordshire & Shropshire is taking applications until 19 October from constituted groups, charities and social enterprises that have been running a year, for the practical things that keep people in touch. → Read on
Shrewsbury Severn Rotary Club is opening its doors for the first time. The club is 40 this year and holds its first open evening on Tuesday 13 October, 7pm, at The Beaconsfield Club on Meadow Place — free, with short talks on its Royal Shrewsbury Hospital sky garden and the Christmas Santa sleigh. → Read on
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Patrons & Sponsors
The Bridge is made possible by the readers and local businesses below:
Franci Capo — passionate lover of pizza at Shrewsbury Market
Cheers,
Albert