BETTYS
CAFÉ & TEA ROOMS HARROGATE
Tea Time and Swiss Confection in Yorkshire<
There
is an enduring mystery at Bettys Café in the Yorkshire
town of Harrogate. No-one really knows who Betty was, though a large
familiar fan following does know that Bettys Café and Tea Rooms
is the place to go for a sweet and a spot of tea in relaxed elegant atmosphere.
Harrogate has been a world renown resort town since is sulfurous spa
waters turned it into a destination for the wealthy of the Victorian
age. Bettys Café has been Harrogate’s best known landmark
nearly
since it first opened its doors in 1919. A confectioner from Switzerland
named Frederick Belmont arrived in Harrogate following World War I and
opened his shop offering his desserts and meals in a mix of Swiss meets
Yorkshire in traditional English Tea Room style. Belmont was supposed
to go to the south shore of England where he had been told business could
be good, but spoke no English and found himself on the wrong train to
the North of England, but decided the town of Harrogate felt a bit like
home.
Belmont
started his own bakery and opened another of his Bettys Tea Rooms in
York, designed in homage
to art
deco style of the Queen Mary
ocean liner after sailing on its maiden voyage in 1936. During World
War II, the basement known as “Betts Bar” became a favorite
of Canadian and American Bomber crews flying missions out of the Yorkshire’s
Elvington Airfield (see Yorkshire
Air Museum Elvington). The bomber crews signed
a mirror at Bettys in York that remains a famous feature today. The Bettys
Cafes merged with a local tea company Taylors of Harrogate in 1962 and
now operate 6 Bettys Cafés around Yorkshire. Unlike the coffee
shop brands of American style commerce, Bettys and Taylors have no intent
to open locations anywhere other than Yorkshire, making a unique local
feature. There are two Bettys in Harrogate, two in York, others in Ilkey
and Northallerton.
It
is Bettys Café in
Harrogate taking up the first floors of a beautiful Victorian building
on the corner of Parliament Street with its distinctive ornate iron
awning
and gold lettered windows displaying
the rich range of cakes and sweet delights which draws a crowd. The tea
room can be packed at lunch hour and tea time. The customers at the
pastry
counter two or three deep to select and debate over the more than tree
hundred varieties of specialty cakes, breads, chocolates, muffins, scones,
biscuits, tarts and confections served every day.
But
the mystery of Bettys Café’s namesake remains after
80 years. It has been suggested that Betty was possible the Queen Mum
Elizabeth, the current queen’s mother, or possibly a former manager
of the storefront where Belmont established his shop, or intriguingly
a little girl who walked into a meeting when the naming was being discussed.
Since the name is without an apostrophe, it may be possibly that it
is name for all three of the possible Bettys, or indeed all the Bettys
who
travel to Yorkshire with a sweet tooth. © Bargain
Travel Europe
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Bettys Cafe
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