Family cafe to close after more than 40 years

A business run by the same family for more than four decades has announced it will close.

The Frensham Snack Bar at Farnham's Great Pond and Common said its last day will be on 6 September.

Owner Samantha Jones, who worked there as a teenager with her parents, told BBC Radio Surrey that she was making the decision with a heavy heart.

"We have amazing customers that we see every day."

She said: "We know them by their first names.

"We've watched their children grow up."

Jones said that "loads" of people had told her it was a shame she was shutting shop.

"It is heartwarming," she added. "You just don't realise how many people this place impacts and how it got so many people through COVID."

She said: "For a lot of elderly people [we're] their only social connection with anyone.

"They come here for a chat and a coffee."

But, Jones added, running the cafe had "taken its toll".

"It is a seven-day-a-week thing – there are a lot of sacrifices involved [in running it]," she said.

"The amount of work is relentless."

Jones said she had been thinking of closing the cafe for a while, but what "sealed it" for her were a couple of unpleasant incidents where she and her colleagues were verbally abused by customers.

"I just thought: 'It is time to go'."

However, the 55-year-old says that is not why she is closing the cafe.

Jones says her father is also seriously ill, meanwhile an early bloom of blue-green algae in the pond meanspeople are not coming to swim.

"That has a massive impact on our business," she said. "It's the time of year where we need to be really busy to see us through the winter."

Though she said she was "sad", Jones added that closing was the right decision.

"I've thoroughly enjoyed it. "I've got some amazing memories.

"[But] 40 odd years is a long time."

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