Braddan Commissioners are looking for something and someone new at The Roundhouse.

And that could be you, dear reader, if you happen to have experience in running your own café business. Yes, though we may be losing the M&S and Waterstones cafés in Douglas, The Roundhouse is evolving and looking for a new tenant to run its one. ‘

The Roundhouse is the heart of Braddan, and the café is the beating heart of The Roundhouse, so it’s an exciting opportunity to expand what we can offer.’

Those are the eloquent words of Moira Radcliffe, Deputy Clerk and Finance Officer at Braddan Parish Commissioners. The expanded offerings Moira’s talking about doesn’t just mean adding cheesecake to the menu, it’s about the café growing to be more than just a café and into a catalyst for a more diverse range of events that the Roundhouse could play host to.

‘As a Local Authority we would love to develop new business opportunities that would benefit the Parish and our tenants. Events like weddings, celebrating life events, conferences, corporate parties, live mic nights are all within the scope of our facilities and any café proprietor would be key to our success. There are so many opportunities we’ve yet to explore,’ Moira tells me enthusiastically.

‘The thing about the Roundhouse is, it’s still in its infancy. We’ve barely scratched the surface of what it could be.’

That’s the centre manager, Cassi McAllister. You may remember her from a previous article on the Roundhouse, in which I talk about her infectiously sunny nature.

‘We’re a community centre, but we want to cater to residents and businesses alike. It’d be great to hear from the community and engage with them about what they’d like to get from The Roundhouse in terms of us putting on events,’ Cassi adds.

In the beginning, the word on the Manx street was that The Roundhouse was simply a second NSC. Yes, it has a great sports hall, but it is not a sports centre. It’s so much more.

There are children’s play areas both outside and inside the building. Outside you’ll also find a 500m exercise track and village green. Inside there’s the sports hall, the (hopefully) soon-to-be new café, a seating area with books and a piano, there are also therapy rooms, a beautician, a dentist, a pharmacy (under construction), gym, children’s sensory hub, nursery, along with a unique circular function room/event space and meeting room.

‘We have lots of great businesses on our doorstep’, Gill Corlett tells me, she’s the R&D Officer at Braddan Parish Commissioners and keen to explore corporate areas. ‘We have so many fantastic spaces here for hire that can be used in different ways, either separately or together.’

The space has already played host to many different events including local dance competition Isle Dance, a well-being day (during which a sauna and ice bath was placed outside), Christmas parties, parents-to-be classes, and countless sport tournaments. The list as long as the space is adaptable. Which is to say, very. It is, truly, an accessible community centre. But back to the café.

‘We’d love to host more corporate and community events, such as conferences, (the sports hall would be ideal for this), but the village green lends itself to a softball league and family events; it’d be great to see some marquees on there in the summer; all of which could be catered for by the café,’ Gill adds.

The sports facilities are thriving in the evening, but the team is hoping to be able to fill the sports hall and function rooms more throughout the day. Be that with lunchtime fitness classes or corporate events or both, which the new café will also be able to cater to.

‘We would support and work with any café tenant who wished to open the space up to more evening events, from simply providing catering for people watching live sports from our comfortable 200 seat viewing gallery to more daytime use of our multi use community room (The Rotunda) for business and corporate events. Someone with experience of holding an alcohol licence could expand the scope of the service that is provided. The possibilities are endless, and we’d love to hear any ideas from prospective tenants,’ says Cassi. ‘We’d like the café to become a destination by itself, to bring people together to use the facilities here.’

The expansion of the cafe will be the latest move in the continuous growth of the Roundhouse, building on the success it’s had so far. If you read this and think to yourself ‘What I do could fit perfectly with the Roundhouse!’ then Cassi, Gill, and Moira would be thrilled to hear from you.

You can get in touch with them via phone - 01624 852808 – email - [email protected] – or by popping in in-person.