Walsoken’s Lillies Cafe and Restaurant sees hygiene rating return to five after short-lived one-star

A West Norfolk cafe is celebrating after seeing its hygiene rating rise from one to five.

Lillies Cafe and Restaurant in Walsoken was inspected in September by an environmental health officer from West Norfolk Council and saw its rating demoted to just one.

However, cafe owner Jeremy Thorpe - who put the demotion down to a lack of proper paperwork while he was off - said he had worked extremely hard since to ensure everything was in order and a new inspection on February 7 saw the cafe back to a five-star rating.

Jeremy said: “Unfortunately, the original inspection was carried out while I was off and the staff couldn’t find all the necessary paperwork for the inspector to see.

“That was the key reason the rating got knocked down to one, although there were one or two other minor things like a seal on a fridge was broken, and we were storing raw vegetables in old ice cream tubs that were not made from the right sort of plastic.

“I didn’t realise that was the case until it was pointed out. All containers have a number on them depending on the plastic, and even though the tubs had been used for ice cream, they were not okay to use for raw vegetables.”

- The cafe’s fall to one-star was highlighted in a list of all the hygiene ratings of eateries in the West Norfolk area in the Lynn News in February, and it prompted one of Jeremy’s loyal customers to write a letter to the paper to support Lillies and praise the high quality of service and food.

In a postscript to the letter in the Lynn News on February 21, we said the cafe was still rated as one as the website had not been updated at the point when we checked.