A COMMUNITY café launched on a shoestring budget is expanding.


The café at the Salford Children’s Holiday Camp in Prestatyn will extend its opening hours to serve vegetarian and gluten free food with produce grown in its community garden.


The Journal reported in February this year on the café's launch – with just a handful of customers and two donations totalling just £40.


But Gill Smith, vice chair of the camp’s management committee, said: “After a slow start, we have really begun to get a good crowd.
“This is in part thanks to the story that was in the Journal earlier in the year.


The café, which has raised money through weekly Wednesday coffee afternoons will now open an hour earlier at noon and provide lunch to customers.
Gill added: “We have some great freshly-made cakes and scones each week which have largely replaced the shop-bought cakes, though the toasted tea-cakes remain a favourite!


"Our produce garden on site will soon be starting to supply the café with fresh produce.


The camp, sometimes called ‘Salford by the Sea’ or the ‘Jam Butty Camp’ was established in the late 1920s to give underprivileged children in Salford a holiday by the seaside.


The community café serves as a hub for the socially isolated and elderly in Prestatyn.


Gill said: “Every week, we do some line-dancing led by one of our customers and we have recently added a craft corner - again led by the community.


“It has been lovely to see people arrive not knowing anyone and meet people who then have become friends.”