Hello, I’m Jordana, I thought I re-introduce myself as we get many new friends and customers the past few months with the opening of our new cafe.
I'm originally from Malaysia, and came to Nottingham to pursue a nutrition degree. At end of my studies, I started preparing healthy meals as I struggled to find nutritious meals around and with the help of the Ingenuity Lab, a department in UoN set up to helps students and alumni to start their own business, I decided to start my own business and as they say, the rest is history!
I first set up a website to take orders, cook and deliver the meals myself. I even bought a tricycle (with basket at rear) to help with meal deliveries. We were the first healthy food delivery service in Nottingham and has a huge ethos for sustainability using only compostable boxes and delivery with bicycles.
Business started to take off and thanks to a grant, I rented the former Canning Circus Police Station and started meal prep and deliveries from there. I remembered doing meal deliveries on weekdays and market events on weekends. I was offered an opportunity to share a premises next to Jubilee Campus. The space allowed me to try out having a retail cafe for a year.
Mid 2019, I came across the new retail unit in Lenton, which led to where we are now. When people asked ‘why Lenton?', it has always been my home since I was at the university and it’s where the business started, so it was a very natural decision. The council has done a fantastic job reinventing the area too!
Our new cafe is based right next to Savoy Cinema and was opened at the end of December 2019. I’ve rebranded our cafe to be called Avocafe by Nutri2Go as we are not only offering ‘2-go’ services but we also aim to be a friendly neighbourhood eatery, offering relaxed, all day dining menu inspired by places and people that I’ve met. With my nutritional background, I aim to provide a well-balanced feel good food, prepared fresh daily.
Since opening, we received great feedback and I enjoyed meeting everyone from the community, whether they are students, local residents or even cinema-goers!
We have hosted gatherings and meetings, and every week, we welcome a learning disability group from the Lenton Centre in for a chat, tea and cakes as part of their activities.
I’m looking forward to the bee-friendly plants planting at the garden around our cafe at the end of March with the community.
We welcome everyone in our new home - doesn’t matter who they are, where are they from. We make what we love and hope you’ll enjoy too.
In the future, I hope to organise more community events that could bring the community together.
If you have any suggestions, please get in touch! :)