Starting Up with Paul Stanton-Humphreys @ Yellow Submarine

We are excited to report that the Yellow Submarine Charity has opened its doors to its second social enterprise café, this time in Witney at the Windrush Leisure Centre.

It was an honour to have our prime minister, David Cameron, cut the ribbon. He mentioned in his speech that four years ago he stood in the kitchen with Toby Staveley, founder of Yellow Submarine Charity, discussing the then very small charity’s big plans for the future.

Those plans led to our first café opening two and half years ago on Park End Street in Oxford. The café’s aim was to provide work experience, training and jobs for people with learning disabilities, meeting a significant need in our community.

The resulting successful café and hub has since been shortlisted as ‘Oxfordshire Café of the Year.

We wanted to make these opportunities available to as many people as possible and so have taken the big step of opening a second café.

At the beginning of June we took over the old café at the Windrush Leisure Centre.

With the help of staff and volunteers, we have spent a lot of time refurbishing it – painting, sanding, building tables and counters, and installing our pride and joy, a La Marzocco Linea espresso machine.

The place is unrecognisable and we think that it looks great!

The café benefits from a much larger kitchen, which we will put to good use by expanding our much-loved Oxford café menu.

It also has a much larger seating area, allowing us to welcome more customers through our doors.

We have always aimed for our social enterprise cafés to be places where our customers come back to because of quality and not sympathy.

So we always strive to produce top quality coffee and food, and give our customers fantastic and friendly service. Judging by our Trip Advisor reviews this is something that our customers agree with.

This creates a sustainable business in which we can run our in-house apprenticeship and traineeship programs to provide a genuine stepping-stone to employment and independence for our members with learning disabilities. Our cafes create incredible, life-changing opportunities.

None of this would be possible without our dedicated staff and volunteers, and the hard work that they put in.

It says a lot about the cafes’ ethos that a couple of our loyal customers quit their corporate jobs to join our happy little band.

Our latest venture is therefore much more than a delicious new café. It’s a centre for employment, training and social activities for people with learning disabilities.

It’s a place where parents with disabled children can drop-in for advice. It’s a timely and innovative solution to supporting the most vulnerable in an affordable and sustainable manner.

Come meet our awesome team and see for yourself what we do.

Try it 
Yellow Submarine Witney Cafe, 1st Floor, Windrush Leisure Centre, Witney
yellowsubmarine.org.uk