A COMMUNITY cafe has reopened after two months following a revamp.

The cafe, at West Oxford Community Centre in Botley Road, has been given a facelift after proving to be increasingly popular over the last few years.

The old kitchen units were pulled out and replaced with new stainless steel ones, new professional equipment was bought, and the seating area has been redecorated.

The layout has also been altered.

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Community centre assistant Rebecca Minton, above, said: “It got to the stage that a lot of people were coming in to use the café.

“We thought, if we want to keep providing a good service and it is going to grow it needs an upgrade.

“The café was a well kept secret in West Oxford – but it is not so well kept now.”

It was also reopened under a new owner Ingrid Gaitet after former owner Ailsa Youngson moved to Leeds to set up her own new cafe.

Miss Gaitet, who lives in East Oxford, said: “I am thrilled to be joining the West Oxford Community Association to run the cafe.

“Ailsa will be a tough act to follow and I am really looking forward to an exciting challenge, making a great community café a continuing success story.”

She added: “The cafe is already thriving thanks to a great ethos and exciting menus and I very much intend to keep it that way.

“I am aiming to make fresh, healthy, affordable food, to serve it in a friendly, welcoming manner, and to deliver a good cup of coffee!"

Miss Gaitet is from Paris but has lived in Oxford for 18 years.

She has moved to the community centre café after running the East Oxford Farmers Market cafe and worked at The People’s Supermarket which shut last year. The café revamp is part of a larger scale refurbishment.

A community health centre – the Oxford Community Health Hub – opened in the building in January based in the rooms of the old GP surgery.

Building work began last year to turn the four GP rooms into a waiting room, a large treatment room and a small treatment room.

Storage cupboards in the centre are also due to be built for residents hiring out the centre’s rooms.