AN AWARD-winning café-restaurant in Kirkby Lonsdale, which is due to play a starring role in the forthcoming feature film The Voyage of Dr Dolittle, has been put up for sale by its owners.

John and Renata Strange have instructed Blacks Business Brokers to market The Crossing Point Café with a guide price of £165,000 for the lease plus a weekly rent of £413.

The Crossing Point Café, which is located on the town’s Market Square, was established by Mr and Mrs Strange in 2014. It has since won the 2016 Cafélife Gold Award, been a finalist in the Cumbria Life Food & Drink Awards in 2016 and 2107 and features in the 2018 Waitrose Good Food Guide.

The couple set up the business after Mr Strange, who was at the time working as general manager at Michelin-starred chef patron Simon Rogan’s Rogan & Co restaurant in Cartmel, went out for lunch in Kirkby Lonsdale and identified both a gap in the market and a suitable premises for sale.

He said: “At the time the café offering in Kirkby Lonsdale was mostly very traditional so we saw there was definitely a market for a more modern menu and approach, and we decided to go for it.”

The café, which now includes a loose-leaf tea, wine and cigar shop, has been operated as a lifestyle business by Mr and Mrs Strange.

Mr Strange explained, “After many years working very long hours in the hospitality business we wanted to do our own thing in a way that would provide us with a good living while giving us our lives back and allowing us to take some nice holidays, and that’s just what we’ve been able to do.”

However, Mr Strange now plans to open up a new restaurant with a business partner elsewhere in the North West, while Mrs Strange intends to focus full-time on another business run by the couple, The Tea Keepers, which supplies loose leaf tea to outlets ranging from independent cafés to Michelin-starred restaurants. As a result they now wish to sell their Kirkby Lonsdale business.

The Crossing Point Café, which boasts distinctive powder blue signage and paintwork, occupies a prominent position in Kirkby Lonsdale’s market square and was selected as one of the locations for a chase scene in the forthcoming film The Voyage of Dr Dolittle.

For the filming it was transformed in a hatters shop, Cropp & Watson Royal Hatters, and the signs that will appear on the film have been retained as part of the café’s frontage.

All enquiries should be made to Blacks Business Brokers on 0333 370 0000.