Small "cafes" and toilets

GothicStirling

mrsormrod wrote: »

Hi, I was wondering if anyone could help.
My mum is Planning on starting a cake making buisness. She already does this from home in her spare time and her cakes are amazing But demand is getting far too high for her small kitchen and due to redundacy in her full time job she has decided to take it on full time and find a premisis away from home. We have found one that is an old sayers building Which is bigger than she wanted. The plan was just to find a small unit and carry on with her internet sales but this shop is in a great location on a small shopping precinct and would be perfect for her cake making with a shop in the front for a small seating area maybe 3 or 4 tables. She was thinking of doing a cupcake cafe. only selling drinks and cakes for now. if there is a demand maybe do sandwiches. But she wants to focus more on the cakes.
Anyway to the point lol. Can anyone help with regulations on the toilet aspects. I dont think there is room for one in the shop and ive tried googling to find out if she has to have a customer toilet by law but cant find anything other than peoples opinions on whether there should be one or not. Can anyone point me in the right direction of a link?
Thankyou in advance
Mrs O

Hi. I've managed cafes and restaurants, with food hygiene qualifications.

To answer your question, yes she is legally required to have toilets - preferably with nappy changing facilities [yes, I've seen customers changing nappies on coffee tables.]

She is also going to be required to complete an Advance Food Hygiene Certificate. She is going to have to know all about HACCP and COSSH procedures. She needs to get in touch with the local Environmental Health agency to make sure she is up to scratch - because they will drop in. Also there are design issues [i.e refuse cannot be take out through the dining area, there must be an exit in the prep area to sealed bins.

It really is a minefield.

paulwf

GothicStirling wrote: »

It really is a minefield.

EHO's are a law unto themself, I can't stress enough to speak to your local department to see what they require. Mine went into great detail analysing the qualifications of the person who wrote the asbestos report - which was completely ridiculous as it was obviously a professional report - but didn't check for food past its use by date which is a major health risk. Bizarre!

GothicStirling

paulwf wrote: »

EHO's are a law unto themself, I can't stress enough to speak to your local department to see what they require. Mine went into great detail analysing the qualifications of the person who wrote the asbestos report - which was completely ridiculous as it was obviously a professional report - but didn't check for food past its use by date which is a major health risk. Bizarre!

I took over a cafe last year, and the previous owners [who we were franchising off] failed to tell us that there was an issue with water quality [some kind of bacterial outbreak] the previous year. We didn't find out until an EHO turned up. :eek: