A little bit About Us
We are an independent family friendly deli café using and promoting local produce from Dorset. We love local!!
10
Years and counting!
12
Team members
25,000
Customers served
100
or more dishes
1871
Smiles a day (approx)
A few words About Us
We are Andrew and Karen and we live locally with our two little girls, we love Boscombe and Pokesdown for its community spirit, its proximity to the beach and the surrounding counties of Dorset and Hampshire.
With this in mind in 2009 we decided to open a café, we both had experience in the catering industry and we realised there were not many places nearby that sold locally sourced food. Andrew set about changing the previous charity shop into a café, building the kitchen and seating himself, fitting the kitchen, and painting and decorating day and night. Whilst Karen designed the interior in a shabby chic/beach style, picking up furniture from charity shops, upcycling and sourcing vintage crockery from wherever they could find it.
We hunted high and low for the best small producers visiting food festivals and farm shops looking for great tasting food we could stock and sell. On Saturday the 21st of January 2012 after two years of hard work, love, sweat and tears and a lot of help from our family and friends Little Pickle was born. We just hoped and sort of knew that there were like-minded people in Boscombe who would love Little Pickle like we do.
Andrew
Baker extraordinaire
I was born in New Zealand and lived between there and Australia whilst growing up.
My love of cooking comes from my mum, Virginia, who is the best cook I know.
Mum was always creating new recipes and dishes for the family and packing my lunch box with homemade treats. I worked in various cafés before moving to the UK in 2005.
After moving to Boscombe with my wife, Karen, in 2007 we decided to set up a café as there was nowhere at the time that sold local produce.
My passion starts with pies, so much so I imported pie tins from Australia just to be able to bake them as I had back home. I have since moved on to sausage rolls and now bake daily.
Karen
Visionary genius
I was raised in Reading and grew up in the hospitality trade. My parents ran a local football club and if I wasn’t waitressing for a function, I was serving behind the bar. It was a very social upbringing!!
After moving to the area with Andrew in 2007 and loving it we decided to open a café. Whilst Andrew built the café I designed the interior and sourced the furnishings.
My favourite area is the vintage corner with toys for little ones and a sofa to chat and catch up with a friend.
In 2016 we decided to extend the original cafe and create a bigger space for people to enjoy. Please do pop in and pay us a visit. We love our not-so-little café and hope you will too.
