A former dessert café in Bury has rebranded into a bar and kitchen, offering a "contemporary" dining experience and tasting menu.
Rawkies Kitchen and Bar opened on The Rock in January 2023 as a dessert café specialising in raw cookie dough.
However, in March this year the business rebranded from a casual café to a small restaurant offering a six-course tasting menu, an in-house menu, and an a la carte menu.
The rebrand comes after owners, Adam Greenwood and Sophie Bussey, experienced high levels of competition after opening and wanted to give the business a lift by expanding their food offering.
They also claim to be the first business in Bury to offer a "tasting menu".
Adam said: “We recently launched the tasting menu and got some really good feedback, but the only downside was not many people wanted to order or book for a company called Rawkies Desserts for a tasting menu which makes complete sense.
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“We got to the new year and decided we really wanted to focus more on the restaurant side as there’s a gap in Bury at the moment for elevated dining.
“We thought let’s bring that contemporary and eclectic food to the forefront.
“We rebranded the business to Rawkies Kitchen.
“We’re still doing the edible raw cookie dough but this time it’s not our unique selling point."
There is still a pop-up counter at the back of the restaurant where people can buy, and takeaway cookie dough and jars are being sold in Mr Simms Sweet Shop in the Mill Gate Shopping Centre.
The rest of the menu has been changed into a restaurant layout and offer contemporary dishes and a tasting menu, which is six courses for £32.
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Adam said: “We’ve seen a real buzz about it now we’ve changed the name, we’ve seen a bit of an uplift and we’re getting great feedback on it.
“I’m not pushing it as fine dining as I’m an amateur chef at best and I’m learning.
“It’s still just me and Sophie doing the cooking and it’s been a struggle.
“We can’t afford staffing at the moment, but we’d like to do in the future.
“With me on my own it got too much at times so we now work when we can both be together where I’m doing the cooking and menu development, and Sophie takes ownership of the baking.”
Since rebranding and offering the tasting menu, footfall has steadily improved for the business as people now recognise them as a restaurant.
They said their main focus now is surviving during the current uncertain times.
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Adam said: “We keep it small and only fill a certain number of tables a night so we can keep up with it, we don’t want to overdo the bookings and then lose the quality of service.
“We want it to be small, intimate and really well controlled and we’d love to get to a place where the tables get booked up and then we can plan for each shift accordingly knowing people are coming in.”
Sophie added: “We’d love to thank the customers we’ve been getting.
“Their support and love has been really heart-warming and we get such lovely feedback.
“It makes us want to keep going especially in times because it is a struggle financially as we’re losing money.
“It is extremely tough but hearing the lovely feedback makes us want to keep fighting and keep going and improve our brand awareness to keep the business open.”
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