Charlbury Deli & Cafe

Served from 8.30am-2.30pm

Served from midday-2.30pm

Deli boards & sharing platters

Fish board
Upton Smokery smoked salmon,
fish pate, taramasalata, anchovies, capers,
lemon wedge, green salad & toast £14.95

Sandwiches (served all day)

All sandwiches are served with a green leaf salad. You can choose from baguette, ciabatta or brown/white sliced. 

Nibbles & small plates

Cake selection (daily homemade specials)
from £3.75
add clotted cream £1.00

Cake bars brownies, flapjacks… £2.95

Cake squares tiffin, millionaire’s… £2.20

Toasted teacake with butter and jam £3.25

Greek yoghurt with honey £3.75

The Ultimate Cream Tea
Scone served with jam, clotted cream, and
a pot of tea for one £4.75

Cream tea your way
Scone with butter £1.95
Add jam 75p
Add clotted cream 75p
Add pot of tea £1.75

Revitalising Charlbury’s main shopping street

We’re beginning to attract a surprisingly healthy collection of articles about us.

Though we’ve really not got the time to collate them all, the Sunday Telegraph was very nice on December 16:
“(Charlbury) is just the sort of place you would hope to find an excellent café and the Charlbury Deli doesn’t disappoint. Most of the produce comes from local suppliers and there’s a mean pastrami, Swiss cheese and gherkin sandwich on offer”

Or you might like the article the Witney Gazette published about us in January 2018:
“A year ago, shops in Charlbury (pop 2,900) had a history depressingly like many affluent Cotswold micro-towns. Soaring house prices and ever easier shopping elsewhere had turned a lovely and buzzy main shopping street into an even lovelier street full of houses. Great for people who could afford them – but lifeless most of the week.

Charlbury wasn’t completely typical of course: Charlbury refuses to be typical of anything. Weekenders, tourists and retired diplomats aren’t filling our lovely houses: more and more, it’s young couples wanting to bring their families up somewhere nicer and roomier than Oxford or London.

But Charlburians buying their quinoa in Witney do no more for the vitality of our town centre than Charlburians buying their zimmer frames. And, since West Oxfordshire produces neither quinoa NOR zimmer frames, they’re not helping other businesses either.

In the past 12 months, we’ve transformed all that.

The 130 Charlburians who’d collectively owned the town’s Good Food Shop for the previous 25 years had decided in 2015 to seek new directors. Their  small, fading shop wasn’t just struggling to stay alive: it was losing money and avoiding closure only by digging into our assets more and  more every year.

It had some underappreciated assets, though: huge loyalty from the shareholders and townsfolk and extraordinary dedication from the two-woman team of Lynne Stubbles and Lauren Clark who’d been managing it.

Then practically the last remaining shop – a more visible and flexible site a few yards away- went under. The new team raised about £30,000 from  other shareholders to refit it, negotiated a  10-year lease on and opened in late July with no advertising or promotional gimmicks.

Overnight, we doubled the number of customers shopping and increased our gross margin (the difference between what we pay our suppliers and what we charge  our customers) fourfold. Though our rent and wage bill have grown, we’re now making healthy profits from much the same selling space as before.

Our old shop? We’ve let that out to the Curiosities Company : on the face of it, a hot-desking facility for local homeworkers, but down in the cellar, Simon’s fermenting kimchi and sauerkraut and curing  local bacon. We’ll be testing it soon against the terrific bacon we already source from Trev Beadle in Chipping Norton – and we’ll probably be selling Simon’s s fermented vegetables alongside the amazing English charcuterie we’re sourcing from Chippy’s Salt Pig Curing Company.

Just up the road from Simon, Deep’s baking his amazing range of bread at the Bread Shed. In Church Hanborough Christian and Luciana will be suggesting beers from the Churchhanbrewery  range to go alongside all of them. Our coffee wouldn’t be the best in the Cotswolds without the relentless coaching in barista skills our team ges from Ori at Oxford’s Missing Bean . And our staff credit Liz and Camilla from Standlake-based CollaGin  for their unfailing good looks.

Overall, about 80% of what we sell comes from Oxfordshire suppliers: take a bow: Standlake’s Oxford Wine Co, Banbury’s Arthur David for fruit and veg, New Yatt’s Mayfield Eggs, more bread from  Carterton’s Bread Bin, meat from Witney’s Densham’s. Most of the rest comes from Berks, Glocs or Northants – and if you’re local, supply good food or drink and want to join us, just send one of us an email at news@charlburydeli.cafe.

We can’t promise we’ll be able to do business with you. But we’d be disappointed if we couldn’t”