A COFFEE shop owner who started selling fruit and vegetables in the first lockdown admits she cannot believe how successful it has been.

Milly Barr expected to stop offering essential groceries at Colombia Coffee Roasters in Summertown when restrictions eased over the summer, but customers urged her to continue.

The store serves other goods like bread, milk, cheese and fruit juices and experienced its best-ever month in May.

Ms Barr, 45, closed the store for the opening fortnight of the first lockdown, but that all changed after one journey through Oxford.

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She said: “I was driving past Waitrose on Botley Road and the queue outside was massive.

“I could see how many people needed food and came home and told my husband we should open up a shop.

“I never imagined I’d ever do it, but we wanted to give the people what they want.

“Even then we thought we’d stop after the first lockdown.”

Oxford Mail:

Our sister paper The Oxford Times is celebrating small businesses like Colombia Coffee Roasters through the OxMas campaign, alongside Oxford City Council, Independent Oxford and Experience Oxfordshire.

Ms Barr, a Summertown resident, grew up in Colombia and came to the UK in 2000 to study for a masters degree in commercial law.

She later decided her heart lay with coffee and set up the business in 2012.

As well as the store on the corner of Banbury Road, the company has another coffee shop in The Covered Market and a roastery in Wheatley.

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After deciding to branch out into fruit and veg, she utilised her contacts to source the best local produce.

It worked spectacularly and customers were soon queuing out of the door, vindicating Ms Barr’s decision.

She said: “I love what I do – I’m not in it for the money.

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“I wanted to do whatever it took to keep going and the people of Summertown have been great.

With footfall at The Covered Market store down 80 per cent during lockdown, the new service has proved a lifeline for Colombia Coffee Roasters.

The business now delivers fruit and veg across Oxford, while NHS staff get 50 per cent off in-store.

But Ms Barr feels her authentic hot chocolate and coffee still play a huge role.

She said: “People come in for a coffee and it’s a little bit of normality, which I think they need.”