This is another dog-friendly place to eat cake from my 101 places to eat cake with dogs series, visited on one of our UK trips. It’s a bit further afield, but I’d recommend it if you’re ever in the Norfolk area and need to stretch your legs, get some fresh air, and the dogs definitely gave it a waggy-tail rating too.
Dog-friendly places to eat cake: 101 series #2
The importance of rest and time to recharge
My first business coach was the formidable dog trainer Cameron Thompson. She mainly coached dog trainers who dealt with difficult dogs, but for a brief period she led a group of female business owners in her Leaders Lounge.
The dogs would go and stay with the trainers to get an immersive training experience which is quite taxing for the trainers, so Cameron advocated we all look after ourselves first.
“You can’t pour from an empty cup”
Every year she would ask when our rest periods were, times in the year when the dog trainers would not have any dogs in their houses.
I realised this also applied to teaching. It’s quite full on, planning, delivering, keeping an eye on people’s bodies, adapting the plan, doing all the admin of running a business.
People also like routine so I embraced her advice by organising my teaching into 5 or 6 week blocks with a week between each block for me to recharge.
The place I go to recharge the quickest is the beach especially on the North Norfolk Coast. The downside of this place is it’s a long way the roads get smaller and smaller the closer we get. So finding places to stop is essential.
A Garden Centre Café That’s Dog-Friendly and Worth the Stop
We often travel to Norfolk for our holiday. My hubby calls it our spiritual home. The trip takes a lot of time due to the roads being rather small but that’s all part of its charm. Finding somewhere to stop that isn’t a service station is one of our joys when travelling. On a recommendation from Debbie Forrest, we recently found the Lime Kiln Kitchen at Thetford Garden Centre.
It’s a lovely small independent place. The café has a separate entrance to the larger dog-friendly part to the café. It’s a nice touch so those that prefer not to eat near dogs have a dedicated area next to the kitchen and those of us with them have a huge area.
The staff are all super friendly and would love to cuddle the dogs however they don’t due to a company policy, they must wash their hands afterwards so dependent upon how busy it is, they might just have a cuddle then go wash up. Which is fab to know hygiene is good and we really don’t like our dogs being fussed by lots of people around the dining table. Our dogs are Labradors so don’t need much fuss to get excited and we try to make sure they are calm around food.
What we ate (and the cake, of course).
Talking of food, it’s all yummy. Dependent upon what time of day you visit will depend on the focus of the menus: breakfast, brunch, forenoon tea, lunch and afternoon tea are all options.
Along with the option of cake all the time!
Our Initial Visit
We visited at lunchtime 2pm-ish so had roast beef and roast pork sandwiches plus house chips. If those are anything to go by the Sunday Roasts are yummy.
We followed the sandwiches with slices of coffee & walnut cake, Millionaire’s shortbread. Always doing halvsies with the hubby. The dogs got water and biscuits.
The coffee and walnut cake was very moist dark walnut sponge with velvety coffee icing. The millionaire’s slice was a concoction of pure caramel, crumbly biscuit, and deep rich chocolate. If you’re inspired by all of this talk of cake do head over to the section on my blog for some of my favourite recipes.
The Lime Kiln Kitchen is easy to find just off the A11 on the Norwich side of Thetford. The place has a big car park with a woodland walk out the back of the centre which had great sniffs for the dogs.
Ratings
- Cake: 5 stars
- Best cake choice: Scones
- Dog-friendliness: 5 stars
- Dog biscuits: 4 stars
- Water for dogs without prompting: Yes
