From a pop-up tearoom to the Food Dock

The first seedling of the idea of Hetty's Place happened back in 2011, when Henrietta Kitt started her first business, Hetty's Tea Party, in the Barge Arm flats at Gloucester Docks. Hetty was drawn to food because both her grandparents came from a farming background — heated debates about organic produce, or whether beef from Hereford or West Wales was best, were often had between her aunties and uncles at family gatherings.

Those gatherings were filled to the brim with homemade food. With seven aunties on her Mum's side and three on her Dad's, the tables were heaving with homemade cakes, salads, sandwiches and pastries — the sweet plates almost equal in number to the savoury.

Whenever Hetty felt unsure about her direction — coping with undiagnosed ADHD at school, juggling work and socialising around being unwell, or facing redundancy in the charity sector — she always felt secure and reassured at one of those family gatherings, surrounded by good food and good family. To Hetty, food wasn't just something to sustain, but to celebrate with and take reassurance from.

So in 2011, a bit unsure of her career direction, Hetty found comfort in baking at home and sharing what she'd made. The encouraging response gave her the idea to start Hetty's Tea Party — market stalls and pop-up tea rooms at the Quays events, selling scones, loaves, traybakes and the occasional cake pop, made with haybales and borrowed furniture from the local thrift shop.

A real café made of bricks and mortar felt like a distant dream, so Hetty grew a business she could run from home: Hetty's Kitchen, based in the old match factory at Morelands Trading Estate. Hetty's Kitchen has won Great Taste awards for its #fudgingdelicious range of brownies and blondies, and supplies them to the farm shops at Westmoreland Services — Gloucester Services, Tebay Services and Rheged.

Hetty's Place is the evolution of both. It's where the seed planted in those pop-up tearooms has, twelve years later, finally sprouted and grown. It's Hetty's dream to create a physical place where she can share that feeling from her family gatherings with others — somewhere familiar and nostalgic, with a creative twist, that feeds your feels whatever you're feeling.