Lesley Hetherington first came to see Chris Butler, Senior Business Development Officer at Five Lamps in July 2013 looking for some advice on opening a café based in Hartlepool railway station
With lots of customer experience in her career, Lesley was looking to take over this existing café and give it a new lease of life. The café is part of the station complex and has a history all of its own.
Chris helped her finalise her business plan, access the Job Centre’s New Enterprise Allowance program and get ready to start trading.
The café opened in early 2014 and since then Lesley has seen the number of previous and new customers grow steadily. When Chris called in at lunchtime recently Lesley was busy serving her regulars with lunches, sandwiches and drinks, all at very reasonable prices and with great customer service.
Lesley is happy to acknowledge that “
Working with Five Lamps was very useful in giving a second opinion on my business model as well as helping me through the NEA process”
The NEA contract is delivered by Five Lamps and is part funded by the European Union, ERDF fund.