AN Urmston businesswoman is counting down the days until her ambitious plans for her gluten-free bakery and cafe to become a community hub in the town is realised. 

Jacqui Williams opened ‘Waive the Grain’ ­— which offers a range of delicious treats, snacks and meals from its Church Road premises ­— on the first day of lockdown last year.

This meant she could not offer eat-in services ­— but she has managed to offer delivery meals and snacks during lockdown.

However, she cannot wait to open the doors for people to eat inside and outside in May.

Jacqui is a coeliac ­— which means she must avoid gluten ­— and the challenges she has faced in the past trying to eat out prompted her to create the eatery.

She said: “I have visited to shops in the past and been told there was a gluten-free bagel which is great and you can have one of the fillings. So then I just asked which one of those fillings was gluten-free as I could see a four or five were not.

"The person then said it was a gluten-free bagel but the fillings were not. I could not believe it. People do not understand how poorly you can be if you have one of the allergens.

“I wanted to create somewhere where people like me could go to eat.

“It is a huge niche in the market but Covid got in the way a bit. I know the profits may not be as much and it is more expensive to make food for coeliacs but there are people who need it.”

The 57-year-old has been busy planning for bookings for their long-awaited tea room day offering 1930s style afternoon teas on May 20.

Customers will be able to relax to the sound of the running water feature and get to be pampered by their staff in full 1930s dress serving great food from days gone by.

Another feature they are excited about are the mocktail children’s afternoon tea parties.

Jacqui said: “We have had to adapt and want to be a community hub ­— but that will have to wait a little bit until we get up and running.

“We are not a greasy cafe, we wanted to create home from home food which you can enjoy.

“We are catering for elderly people as well as younger people and children too.

“As part of our business plan we want to grow vegetables in the garden to be used for food and children can enjoy growing it.

"We also have a pizza oven outside so people can have pizzas and in the long-term we want to have Friday and Saturday evenings offering an a-la-carte menu.”

For more information search for 'Waive the Grain' on Facebook.