The Kent-based business has jumped on the catering bandwagon which has taken garden centre retail by storm, working alongside the successful restaurateur to rejuvenate its catering offering.
The garden centre has been fitted with a farm shop-style restaurant with a total of 90 covers indoor and out. It will offer customers both self-service and table service facilities with food sourced locally in three-month seasonal menus. Bosses at the garden centre made the decision to update its existing restaurant, which opened in 2009, following a growing customer base.

Managing director of Tenterton and Canterbury Garden Centres Edward Boult said: "We were looking to create a unique restaurant for our garden centre and felt that Bucknalls would be an ideal operator to take our catering to the next stage. We feel that the fit out they have completed ideally complements the garden centre and the menu and improvement has been well received by the customers."

Bucknalls recently decided to expand into the retail sector following the successful opening of a catering facility at the Building Research Establishment in Watford. The company then identified garden centres as its ideal route of development.

The partnership between Canterbury and Bucknalls is long standing and enables the garden centre owners to retain the benefit of having the draw of the catering facility without the cost burden of its staff, wastage and equipment repairs costs.

Bucknalls md Lesley Constantine said: "The look of the restaurant will be very much like a farm shop but elegant with cake stands and wooden tables to display all the cakes etc."