Painting pottery and eat pancakes!
Based in our very home town, it has taken us long enough to visit local take on pancakes with a twist, Pots and Pancakes (NE29 0BL), but now that we’ve been once, it might just become an addiction!
Open since 2005, and not far from North Shields Metro, hides the former Dragon’s Den contenders – no, they didn’t receive investment (boo!), episode is worth a watch here though. Nonetheless, some 25,000 pancakes on and doing better than ever, the girls even making an appearance at the recent Tynemouth Food Festival.
We go on a late Saturday afternoon, so thankfully not overrun with kids this time, but apparently they often are – probably a good place for a kid’s party. We go for a (massive) pot of tea, and a couple of the pancakes – choosing from a typical selection classic sugar and lemon (£1.95) and my choice (pictured), nutella and banana (£2.95). Also available are savoury offerings like goat’s cheese and spinach, and toasties. The pancakes should satisfy anyones sweet cravings, but the star of the show are the “pots”.
The large wall of shelves contains an array of plates, plant pots, vases, mugs and other ceramic creations which are plain white and set, but not fired, awaiting to be covered in paint. Simply choose a piece, helpfully categorised by price (about £8 for a small plate – £25 for a huge skull), the girls bring out the brushes and paints, and away you go – imagination and inspiration pending, of course.
We decided to make mugs for one another , which are £10 and £11. It’d be going back to our school days since the last time we did anything to do with pottery, but given a cup of tea and a paintbrush, the next few hours just whizz by in silent contentment – probably with a tongue sticking out due to intense concentration of getting the design down. The firing process usually takes a couple of days, but the staff were canny enough to rush ours through. These would make a great personalised gift for someone.
On the food side – they are currently running a Man vs. Food insired pancake challenge – finish 8×8” American-style pancakes in 20 mins and get them free and avoid a photo on the wall of fail, which has definitely got us interested… 3 have succeeded to date.
Anyone in the area, or even if flying past on the Metro should definitely pay Pots & Pancakes a visit, especially those with a creative streak – I mean, look at that masterpiece above… Can’t think of a better way to spend a few hours doing something relaxing and ending up with something great to take home at the end. The pancakes are canny too.
Contact: potsandpancakes.com
Food hygiene rating: 5
Related Posts
