A new café and shop for people who 'love coffee, love cakes and love dogs' has opened in Ottery St Mary.
Sup Dawg in Broad Street is run by Reuben and Solo Marsh who used to own a shop across the road selling products for dog owners.
They came up with the idea of a combined café and 'dog shop' back in December 2022 but were waiting for the right premises to become available. They were delighted when one of their customers offered a unit for rent. The new business opened on Saturday, May 4.
Sup Dawg's menu caters for two-legged and four-legged customers. The café focuses on locally sourced food and drink including milk from Oak Park Dairy, coffee roasted in Buckfastleigh and fresh produce from the Ottery shop Rabbit & Co. The business is plastic free, serving drinks in cans and glass bottles, and taking its deliveries of milk in reusable churns. The café offers soups, salads, sandwiches and cakes - some of its cakes are baked on the premises, others come from The Exploding Bakery in Exeter.
Dog owners can treat their pets to peanut butter and banana ice cream, goat's milk 'pupachinos' and 'pupagatos' (a dog version of the coffee-based Italian dessert affogato), with further foods to be added to the menu in the near future.
Solo said: "Shop wise we just have a reduced selection to what we had in our old shop including doggy pick & mix, food, toys, treats and our human clothing range with dog-related illustrations on that we’ve designed and printed ourselves."
Reuben and Solo are planning a monthly Dawg Club evening for dogs and their owners, with the first taking place on Friday, May 31. There will be activities such as making plaster of paris paw prints, making snuffle ball dog toys and dog portrait painting.
Solo said: "We have come to love Ottery and have always said it’s a town with a village community feel. Almost every other person has a dog so we fit right in with our three mad, four-legged kids!
"Ottery has so much to give, it’s full of wonderful independent shops and services. We’re one of three cafes that have opened in the last month, joining some other truly fantastic eateries that have been here for years like The Coffee Bank and The Silver Otter. We all offer different niches so there’s room for us all to thrive."
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