Veganuary: Plant-based cafe opens new Glossop site with great success

Glossop’s popular Thrive café opened its new premises on Henry Street in December last year.

The vegan eatery had previously been situated on George Street, a mere five minute walk from their new location, however when the opportunity for a bigger unit arose, owners Dave and Saiema felt this would be their next step in “moving onwards and upwards”.

The couple said that their main goal was to have a café where people can eat anything on the menu, prioritising unprocessed fresh food made on-site. Their menu offers a variety of plant-based meals, ranging from smoothie and buddah bowls to chickpea & spinach curries and superfood chillies.

“Thrive’s original goal stemmed from our interest in a holistic lifestyle,” Dave said.

“Having been a high-level martial arts coach for many years, I found that self-preservation and looking after myself in the best way possible was a huge priority of mine. That’s what it was all about.

“I’ve lived in Glossop and Hadfield nearly all my life but both myself and my partner always found that we had to travel out of the area to find those healthier, less-processed options. As much as we loved supporting local restaurants and cafes, we found that vegan options were very minimal and a challenge to find.”

The pair decided to adopt a plant-based lifestyle around 14 years ago. They said that after having trialled multiple types of diets, veganism was where they saw the most positive changes.

Dave continued: “I was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis at only eleven years old and for years I had lots of problems with my joints, I’d already been down the route of taking all the painkillers and anti-inflammatories that I could, but it was transitioning to a plant-based diet which really alleviated all of my problems. It was a game changer – my body and cholesterol fat levels dropped, my recovery rate, sleep, everything improved to such a huge degree.”

Saiema had been doing nutritional consultations and detox plans with a “fantastic success rate” prior to opening Thrive alongside Dave.

“We’d seen tremendous changes in people, their health had improved massively – even down to some people coming off their long-term medication so it all just kind of extended from there,” Dave added.

“My attitude has always been, you can’t feel alive while eating dead foods. Lots of people do think you’re very restricted with a plant-based diet so we like to show them that this really isn’t the case; ultimately there’s a lot of choice and this is why we change the menu considerably every other week, to give people new options and ideas as ingredients go in and out of season.

“It was always a case of whatever Saiema cooked at home, that was our inspiration. I’d say, ‘that’s delicious, you’ve got to get that on the menu, let’s get that out to people’.”

Thrive tends to avoid ‘mock meats’, which is something Dave and Saiema are very passionate about.

“There are different types of veganism – the people who do it ethically, those who do it nutritionally, everyone’s in it for their own reasons – but from the perspective of ticking all the boxes, I’m not a great fan of these ultra-processed fake meats.

“We do try to limit those at Thrive. You get people coming in wanting the full breakfast and we will cater the odd time to that but really we aim to avoid it and focus on products which are made fresh on site, supporting the café’s holistic message of eating things that are good for you or a certainly better options for you.”