It was a tragedy when ‘Cafe @ 65’ closed. The good people of Sutton no longer had somewhere to meet up for a cuppa and a spot of lunch. For a village with a population of nearly 4,000 people, this was criminal.

Luckily, ‘Joy Bistro’ has swooped in and saved the day by reopening the cafe. Run by a husband and wife team, they offer the usual cafe staples such as tea, coffee, sandwiches, jacket potato, English breakfasts, and desserts.

More excitingly, they are also running a takeaway service!

It’s a big menu, with 6 whole pages, including an entire page dedicated to pizzas alone. There are 18 pizza options in total and the ability to customise your pizza with different toppings. Pizzas are stone baked and really good value when compared to Cambridge (where prices can reach anywhere up to £16 for a pizza). Heck, it’s even cheaper than Pharmacie in Waterbeach which is the cheapest pizza I have found so far.

It was good to see a stuffed crust option but I thought it was a shame that there isn’t a slightly larger pizza than the 12″.

There is a small vegetarian menu with falafel wraps, a veggie burger and a ‘shicken’ kebab. I could not see any mention of gluten free options.

It’s early days at the moment, so everything is a bit bare bones inside. Thanks to the removal of the shelves along the main wall and a different placement of the counter, it feels significantly more spacious than it did before, with a rough capacity of 28 people seated. They still have the big window that lets in a lot of light and gives a nice view of the high street.

The Pizza:

We ordered a 12″ pepperoni pizza with a stuffed crust and garlic dip. At first glance I thought they had messed up my order and given me a margarita but if you look closely, the pepperoni is hidden under a thick layer of cheese. The pizza didn’t look overly appealing by eye but it tasted great. It had a thin crust that was nice and crispy. The stuffed crust was filled with a lovely melted cheese that oozed out, making it perfect for dipping into the garlic sauce. Lovely!

The Kebab:

We grabbed a lamb doner kebab for £8.90 (60p cheaper than Rumbles Fish Bar around the corner). It came in a large bread roll rather than the pitta bread advertised on their menu. They told me that this is something they are trialing due to demand but they may consider going back to pitta bread in the future.

My wife and I had different opinions on the bread. She preferred it to the pitta because it made the kebab easier to eat…I found it heresy! 😂 I’ll leave it up to you to decide! Let us know in the Cambridge Foodies what your opinion is.

The meat portions were good and not overly fatty like you sometimes get with other kebab shops. It felt much cleaner and lighter.

The salad consisted of lettuce, tomato, cabbage, and red onion. It all tasted fresh but the ratios were off, making it unbalanced. There were generous portions of tomato and a scarce amount of lettuce and cabbage.

The Chips:

We ordered some large chips to accompany our mains. These were fairly standard chips but there was nothing offensive about them either. Just good all rounder chips 👍

There is a selection of freshly made desserts on display at the bar, including my favourite – baklava! 😍 I didn’t get a chance to sample any of this but it all looked great. I can’t wait to come back and explore these.

The English Breakfast:

We popped back a few days later to try their breakfast menu. Options were slim but all the important dishes were on there – the English breakfast, the breakfast bap, omelette, and toast.

The dish that grabbed my attention from the breakfast menu was the English breakfast. It came with 2x sausages, 2x rashers of bacon, 2x hash browns, 2x fried eggs, baked beans, a grilled tomato & 2x slices of toast. Add ons were only 50p but I was disappointed to learn that they do not do mushroom or scrambled eggs.

I was keen to order the English breakfast to compare it to the previous cafe, ‘Cafe @ 65’. They used to do marvellous juicy sausages with a subtle hint of herbs that really added a robust flavour. Unfortunately, the ones at Joy Bistro didn’t keep up with my nostalgic memory of these. With that said, I thought that everything was done to a good standard, including their sausages.

The eggs were quite sad, with one being overcooked. Otherwise, a good all round English breakfast (keeping in mind this was all for under £9). When you consider the price, I would say that it was a good deal.

Update: We have visited again and the breakfast was even better than before (especially the eggs).

Conclusion:

Both my wife and I have visited Joy Bistro twice since it has opened and we have had a satisfying meal both times. It is great value and I’m glad there is finally a place for people to meet up in the village again. The pizza was the strongest dish tonight but the kebab divided opinions, especially with the bread. The English breakfast isn’t going to win any awards but it is decent quality and great value.

There is a lot more to their menu to explore and I look forward to visiting again. I have seen some pictures of their jacket potatoes on the local Facebook group and they look fantastic, so I am very optimistic.

Thanks for reading!