Birds Bakery officially reopened the doors to its Mansfield store over the weekend after undergoing a full refurbishment to give it a fresh new look.

The family-run bakery began serving customers again at 8am on Saturday, 3rd October with social distancing and face covering rules remaining in place.

A brand-new purpose-built hot serving counter designed to showcase their ‘food to go’ offerings is now featured in-store, as well as a new takeaway coffee machine.

The Mansfield branch, which first opened back in 1992, was closed between 26th September and 2nd October to allow renovation work to take place.

Lesley Bird, chief operating officer at Birds Bakery, said: “We are really pleased to be welcoming customers back to our Mansfield store, after temporarily closing for a short period this week to carry out the refit. We are committed to investing in our stores, with an emphasis on our takeaway food offering, as that is where we are currently seeing the demand.

“We have invested in £85,000 to refit our Mansfield store, to include new high-quality equipment and technology, including new TV screens to help provide the best possible experience when visiting a Birds store.”

As one of Birds’ 60 branches, the Mansfield store will also be the first Birds Bakery store to pilot the reintroduction of cash, after coin payments were initially restricted at the start of lockdown, to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Mr Bird added: “We will be trialling the reintroduction of cash at a select number of stores, with Mansfield being the first branch to pilot the reintroduction. Although we will be accepting cash, contactless or card payment methods will still be our preferred method of payment.

“We have consulted with our staff on the reintroduction of cash, and it is imperative that we keep each one of our employees safe. At Birds, we take the safety of our staff and customers very seriously – and have therefore had very tight procedures in place during this pandemic.

“Like many other food outlets during COVID-19 we asked customers only to use debit cards and contactless payment because notes and coins are not clean – and this poses a risk to our staff who are handling that money. Our focus is to keep our

frontline staff safe as well as our customers – the majority of whom are elderly and vulnerable.

Eight more shops will begin trialling cash payments from Monday, 12th October, including both stores in Sutton in Ashfield, Loughborough, Anstey, Park Farm, Stretton, Branston and the Bakery Shop on Ascot Drive.

Birds Bakery is now also offering a ring and reserve service as well as the home delivery service.