Nadia Banton from Hazelwood Sports Club pays tribute to her favourite café and its owner

Ahmet Yildiz has run Café Venezia in Chaseville Park Parade for the last twelve years, and although the menu may have changed over time to include vegetarian and Turkish breakfasts as well as the traditional full English, some things have reassuringly stayed the same.

One constant is Ahmet’s involvement with the N21 community. He has catered for children’s parties, cooked for a local women’s refuge, cultivated great customer loyalty and, more recently, has formed a relationship with my local sports club, Hazelwood in Ridge Avenue, in conjunction with one of its tennis outreach programmes, Rackets Cubed.

Not only does Ahmet take time out each term to discuss menus with us volunteers to be able to vary them each week for our 30 hungry children – who will have just come off a tennis court after an energetic 45-minute coaching session – he also tries to come up with healthy options for them.

Sometimes it’s a comforting creamy macaroni cheese or a tangy tomato pasta bake. These dishes aren’t necessarily always on the café’s menu but he and his wonderful colleague, Angel, ensure that they are piping hot and waiting for us when we go to collect them from Café Venezia.

Of course, the children whoop for joy when they know chips form part of any meal, and we volunteers have also been known to filch the odd chip or two because they simply taste too good. The children don’t know Ahmet personally but constantly mention him and his fabulous cooking. Two boys, both in year four, when eating in our clubhouse have said: “The food is so good here we don’t know why this place isn’t packed!”

Hazelwood Sports Club, with the enthusiasm and financial backing of Rackets Cubed, has been very lucky to form this relationship with Ahmet. He has been catering for us for almost a year and a half and, as long as the club continues with this particular tranche of its outreach work, we all hope that Ahmet and Angel will continue to look after the catering for the programme and keep all the children in Rackets Cubed in the (grand epicurean!) manner to which they have become accustomed.

Why not pop in and say hello to Ahmet and Angel in Café Venezia? There are not many places around these days where you can have toast and jam and a steaming hot mug of tea and still come away with change from a fiver!

Café Venezia is based at 8 Chaseville Parade, Chaseville Park Road, Winchmore Hill N21 1PG. For more information:
Visit just-eat.co.uk/restaurants-cafe-venezia-winchmore-hill-n21/menu

No news is bad news

Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.

The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less.

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, yearly or one-off donation.

Choose the news. Don’t lose the news.

Monthly direct debit

Annual direct debit

£5 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else, £10 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else and a print copy posted to them each month. £50 annual supporters get a digital copy of each month's paper before anyone else.