Canteen: Where’s it at and where might it go?
Many of you will have visited Canteen – Frome Food Network’s community restaurant experiment, that is – across one of its six (official) pop-ups over the last 12 months.
For those that haven’t, nae worry – there’ll be at least one more chance to visit in the new year.
In the meantime, it feels right to close the book on 2025 with some reflections on what Canteen has done so far:
Over the summer, we hosted Canteen #5 at Trinity Church, serving 123 people Oaxacan tacos with pico de gallo and refried beans, followed by blackcurrant trifle.
I (Hugh) was also around this time on a panel discussion about the cost of cheap food, hosted by Frome Medical Practice – listen to the recording here.
Then, in collaboration with the lovely folks at Vicky Park, we fed 222 people hogget shawarma and carlin pea falafel with a community potato salad grown by 100 people across Frome (as orchestrated by Kerry at Frome Seed Library). Poached plums and lavender shortbread was for pud.
Let’s show you the total numbers for Canteen’s pop-ups since they began in October 2024:
6 pop-ups
898 people fed
33 meals partly subsidised by the community
25 meals fully paid for by the community
85% of ingredients sourced from local, nature-friendly sources
Add to those stats the people we fed at the Green & Healthy Conference at Wesley Church (more on that below) earlier this month, and we’ve fed almost 1,000 people in total.
That’s almost 1,000 people who’ve come to enjoy a wholesome menu from hyperlocal ingredients in a communal setting, and at whatever price they choose.
Tell us what you think
We reckon the numbers above are a pretty good indicator Frome likes the idea of Canteen, and would like to see more of it.
We are missing a few more details, though – namely whether Canteen is influencing local food culture. And so we’d love to run a few questions by you:
The questionnaire takes 2-3 minutes to complete. Thanks for your time.
Canteen’s story in print
On 3rd November, people from the South West and beyond descended on Wesley Church for the Green & Healthy Frome conference. As Canteen was part of this project (to address health and climate), it felt right to provide lunch for attendees to give a visceral sense of how Canteen works and perhaps inspire people from other communities to try the same.
In that vein, we came up with a zine printed for the conference that told the story of Canteen – from its incidental ties to a state-supported restaurant in Frome in 1943, through to recipes for dishes we’d put on for the pop-ups:
What’s next for Canteen?
Canteen’s organising crew (Sue, Hugh, Lyndsey, and Cherry) are currently planning to hold the next pop-up early next year. Exact date and venue TBD.
All the while, we’re undertaking more research to better understand how Canteen might continue beyond its funding period, which closes mid-February. This includes scoping out new venues in Frome, understanding the history and potential future of social dining at large, and seeing what links there might be in the wider Frome community.
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