Tag

ambleside

21/06/2018

The Lake District Pound

The Lake District Pound (LD£) is our region’s new local currency – designed to celebrate everything you love about this place, and help keep our region special.   We will be accepting the Lake District pound in our shops when it launches. £1, £5, £10 and £20 Lake District notes will be exchanged one for one with sterling, but can only be spent in participating businesses that are locally owned, trade locally and were either founded in, or unique to the area. Lake District Pounds can be spent, respent, or... Read More

14/01/2018

What’s New For 2018?

We had a fantastic 2017 here at Friars. After a busy Easter we invested heavily designing our new look website. This was followed by our first Christmas at our new online warehouse, which saw record Christmas sales. Our two stores in Keswick and Ambleside continued to be packed with shoppers looking for ‘something different’. All in all we have had a great year, with the business going from strength to strength and we are forever grateful to our fabulous customers. What’s new for 2018 you ask. Currently our new gin,... Read More

13/05/2017

Celebrating Our 90th Birthday

Ye Olde Friars has now been trading for 90 years! Founded in 1927 by William Long as ‘The Gift House’ gift shop it soon change its name (1929) to the more recognisable ‘Ye Olde Friars’. It has adapted over the years from a café come chocolate shop to a specialist luxury chocolate shop. The business has been in the Webster family since day one and currently has four family members working in the business. One of the most significant changes came in the late 80’s to early 90s when Gina... Read More

30/05/2016
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It’s Our Ambleside Shops 1st Birthday

Our Ambleside store will be one years old as of the 1st June. Here we chat to our store manager Sam Melbourne about what has been an exciting and chaotic year. Do you have a first memory from when you started? Not sure I should say this but when I started the smell of chocolate when you walked into the shop was so intense it actually made me feel sick! For the first 2 weeks I was contemplating quitting as it reminded me of morning sickness, I have 4 kids... Read More

05/05/2016

Interview With Our Longest Serving Staff Member

Angela Davison started working for us 20 years ago on the shop floor in our Keswick store. She is now a key member of the senior management team, if there is anything that Angela doesn’t know about chocolate then it is not worth knowing. What is your first memory of Friars? It was actually before I worked in the Keswick store. I was about 21 and was in the shop with my friend, we walked past a ceiling high set of shelves full of shortbread. I swear we didn’t touch... Read More

26/04/2016

A591 Opening On 13th May, Yay!

Finally after months of waiting the A591 linking our Keswick and Ambleside stores is finally going to be re-opened on the 13th of May. The road has been closed since December due to damage caused by storm Desmond. Although the flooding in the Lake District didn’t directly damage our premises, it has had a huge impact on businesses in the area through flood damage and lack of footfall. It is estimated that the shutting of the road that links North and South Lakeland costs the local economy £0.5m every day... Read More