The owner of a new Danish bakery and café in Norwich has been overwhelmed by the support from customers and has worked up to 17 hour days to meet demand.
Frå.kost opened at Unit 1 St Augustines Gate on Monday, April 12 and has been four years in the making for Maggie Christensen, 31, who moved to Norwich from Denmark in 2017.
When she came to the city she missed authentic Danish pastries so taught herself to make them and began delivering them, along with fresh lemonade, across Norwich on a cargo bike.
After stopping deliveries in 2019 as she had outgrown her kitchen, she decided to take the business up a gear to focus on looking for a shop and she finally found the perfect spot earlier this year.
Miss Christensen and her new business partner and Frå.kost manager Aaron Pritty, 22, who also runs Norwich-based mobile coffee company Lono Espresso, then gutted and renovated a former Chinese takeaway to create a café with an on-site bakery.
Since opening on April 12, the support from those living in the NR3 postcode and beyond has been enormous and from Monday to Sunday over 1,000 pastry knots were sold, including 300 on Saturday alone.
Miss Christensen said: "People have been very welcoming and the phrase we hear the most is that we are so happy you're here as we didn't have anything like this in NR3.
"We are completely plant-based but we have deliberately not focused on it as we want people to come here for the food not just because it is vegan."
While there is a limited menu at the moment of pastry knots, rye bread, morning porridge and hot and cold drinks, this will expand over the next few weeks to include Scandinavian-style open sandwiches, kombucha and cakes as Miss Christensen takes on another person full-time to help bake.
There is currently a few outside tables and customers will be able to sit inside too from May 17.
Miss Christensen added: "I spent four years working towards this and there has been so many setbacks in my journey since coming to Norwich.
"It feels surreal and like any day now I'm going to wake up and it never happened."
Frå.kost is open Monday to Sunday 8am to 5pm.
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