The idea of getting people to come along, all year round and in all weathers, and sit outside a tiny café might not have looked like an obviously successful business plan.

But people have embraced the concept and taken The Shed in Laxey to their hearts.

Now The Shed has a ’baby brother venue’, Little Shed, and it’s in one of the island’s favourite beauty spots, Dhoon Glen.

It opened two weeks ago and people have been flocking there ever since.

’We’ve been overwhelmed,’ says owner Bev Clegg.

And she goes on: ’The idea of opening another Shed was never on the cards but the building in Dhoon Glen came up for tenancy and these opportunities rarely come up so it was too good to miss.

’We put in our application to DEFA and luckily we got it.

’It’s small and quirky: that’s what we love and that’s what we do well.

’DEFA had already renovated the building and put a new roof on and new kitchen cupboards and it was nice just putting our stamp on it after that.’

DEFA is also cutting back and clearing the large picnic space at the back which has huge potential for events.

The work in Dhoon Glen is part of DEFA’s ongoing regeneration of the Manx national glens and they will be working on the Dhoon’s upper footpaths during the winter.

’They’ve been brilliant,’ says Bev.

Not only is Little Shed somewhere that people can drive to, when the MER trams are running, as they have been the last two weekends, they can travel up that way too.

Bev says: ’It was really special with the trams running: watching them pull up and people getting on and off gave it a lovely vintage charm.

’It’s so lovely seeing people enjoying the glen: we wanted to make a destination, not just a café, to get people out and about more exploring.’

This week sees Little Shed moving on to winter opening hours so if you want to visit times are Thursday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm.