The Fox and Hounds

Mac­mil­lan Can­cer Sup­port is such a worthy cause and cof­fee sys­tem sup­plier, Café du Monde, has sup­por­ted the World’s Biggest Cof­fee Morn­ing for the past 5 years, rais­ing over £50,000. This year’s fun­draiser was held on 25^th Septem­ber and they dis­trib­uted free cof­fee to their par­ti­cip­at­ing cus­tom­ers.  The cus­tomer rais­ing the most money this year was the Fox and Hounds in Llan­car­fan near Barry in the idyllic Vale of Glamorgan.

This pub res­taur­ant with rooms is the heart­beat of the vil­lage and was pur­chased by the vil­la­gers them­selves in 1999, when it was threatened with clos­ure. It is no won­der, then, that the com­munity ral­lied round present own­ers, Sue and John Mil­lard. Between them, they raised the mag­ni­fi­cent sum of £1,110 for Mac­mil­lan. Plan­ning the event began weeks before with prizes being donated for a grand raffle. On the day, there was a ‘bring and buy’ and home-made cakes were baked and bought – all in addi­tion to the cof­fee morn­ing itself. The event was even advert­ised in the local news­pa­per. Says Sue: “We are a very close knit com­munity here and many res­id­ents have their own per­sonal exper­i­ences of can­cer. Because we all believed in the cause, it came as no sur­prise just how much we had raised. This is our best effort so far, bring­ing our five-year total to over £3,000. Thanks and con­grat­u­la­tions to all our customers.”

In 2001, Sue and John bought the Fox and Hounds from the vil­la­gers in return for a com­mit­ment to con­tinue to run it as a pub. Today, it is renowned in the loc­ale for its food, with 8 en-suite bed­rooms draw­ing tour­ists to South Wales and busi­ness people vis­it­ing nearby Cardiff. John, a clas­sic­ally trained chef, runs the kit­chen per­son­ally with the help of his sous chef, Dar­ren. Their cuisine is tra­di­tional home cook­ing, served in hearty por­tions. Their Cod in Beer Bat­ter is widely regarded as the best in Wales.

The asso­ci­ation with cof­fee sup­plier, Café du Monde, goes back to when they first opened. They use a free-on-loan cafetière sys­tem, serving Con­tin­ental and Decaf­fein­ated blends from eleg­ant glass cafetières. They also offer espresso-based spe­ci­al­ity cof­fees from a Mon Ami 50 bean-to-cup machine sup­plied by Café du Monde.

Of their cof­fee sup­plier, Sue says:

“We would not change Café du Monde for the world. Their cof­fee is just the best. They have been with us since the start and are so sup­port­ive. Office staff are more like friends than sup­pli­ers and com­pet­it­ors don’t even bother knocking!”

| testimonial | Tags: beantocup, cafetiere, featured