A street food takeaway vehicle that aims to serve “high-quality, personal recipe food” will officially open for the first time this week.
Sabro’s will operate in the car park of The Fountain pub in Soham from June 10 after district councillors approved the idea at a licensing non-statutory sub-committee meeting.
The takeaway service is the idea of Samuel Taylor Howard, who applied to have a hot and cold food and drink catering unit permanently located in the pub’s car park on Churchgate Street.
Matthew Howard, Samuel’s brother, told councillors that his sibling “put a great deal of knowledge and thought into this new venture.
“The vehicle would be providing high quality, personal recipe food using locally sourced, fresh ingredients.”
Mr Howard said Samuel, also his business partner, is an experienced chef having worked in restaurants in Cambridge.
Councillors had considered objections to the plans from local residents, including possible noise and parking issues stemming from the food vehicle.
In response, Mr Howard said the vehicle “would be virtually silent” and due to live music inside the pub, there was already “a higher level of ambient noise than from any cooking activities by the vehicle”.
Limited orders of five per 30-minute slot through an app would also be used to control the number of customers to the vehicle, and any disruptive customers “could be blacklisted” from using the app.
Mr Howard said the car park was “well-sized and the siting of the vehicle had been considered to minimise disruption”.
Councillors were told that the pub had backed the idea “as a valuable addition to the operation of their existing business, since it was not serving food at present”.
He told councillors of plans to keep the vehicle on-site each evening and signage to assist customer flow through the car park, as well as serving food and drink all day.
The report said: “Mr Howard stated that it was intended to have a breakfast service from 7am to 12pm, with arrival for preparation from 6.30am.
“And, a dinner service from 4-9pm on weekdays and 4-10pm at weekends (Fridays and Saturdays) with one hour at the end for ‘clean down’.”
Councillors approved Sabro’s on the condition that the vehicle remained on-site at the end of trading and to reflect revised trading hours.
These were 7am-9pm Sundays to Thursdays and 7am-10pm on Fridays and Saturdays.
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