A Weston café which has celebrated 40 years in business this year has reopened its doors under new management.

The Copper Kettle, in Locking Road, first opened in what had been a greengrocers’ shop in 1976 – before the construction of the Hildesheim Bridge bypass, and when the road acted as the main gateway to the town.

Since then, it has spent most of its years operated by Larry Larson and his wife Hazel, but the pair have more recently taken on tenants to run the cafe.

The newest of those is Wendy Barker and her partner, who have already overseen a refurbishment of the entire premises, which now include a timeline of Weston’s history on one wall.

She said: “I wouldn’t have wanted to open the café the way it was but now it’s all revamped and everything is made to order.

“I used to come here as a customer and spent a year trying to buy the place before I managed to.

“Everything here is freshly cooked to order and I make all the things like quiches in-house.”

Mr Larsen told the Mercury the cafe had been through a lot in its 40 years of opening, but had always retained the same values in its food.

He said: “The Copper Kettle takes after its name – it represents good, honest English food.

“My wife and I became involved in 1982, when it had been opened for no more than five or six years, and from the early 1980s to the late 1990s, there haven’t been many people who hadn’t come in at some point.

“Builders, contractors and all sorts of businessmen and holidaymakers used to flock here; especially when Locking Road was the main way into Weston.”