A POPULAR tea room with a twist finally opened its doors in Bradford city centre on Monday, with co-owner Richard Wilson delighted to see a long-held ambition come true.

The Cake'ole has gained quite the following at its other cafes in Skipton and Keighley but the new location, next to the Mirror Pool in City Park, has been Richard's dream venue for a long time.

He said: "Four years ago last week, I was outside this building, where we used to deliver to the Pavilion Cafe.

"I rang my business partner Neil (Senior) and said we had to open a tea room here. Four years later, here we are.

"Bradford Council have offered us lots of support just to get us here. We'd been looking at Bradford for a while and they'd offered us a few different properties.

"We'd looked at venues too. But Neil and I agreed that we had to like it and it had to be a place we'd go ourselves.

"Bradford's special to us as people travel from here to our other cafes. We have three tea rooms now and we want five in the end, with possibly one in Leeds."

The twist at Cake'ole comes with its decoration, like a Mad Hatter's tea room, and its blooming social media presence.

Richard explained: "People do come because they enjoy the food and drink we offer, but also because of the decoration, which is our USP.

"It's great when you see the look on people's faces when they come up to the doors for the first time.

"We try to make our venues Instagram friendly, so wherever you look, you can take a photo.

"We have a lot of people following us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and the build up on there to us opening has worked."

After hosting one of its popular private parties for VIP's on Saturday, which was lit up spectacularly by the pool and town hall, Bradford's Cake'ole officially opened to the public on Monday.

Richard was delighted with the way the day was turning out, saying on Monday afternoon: "It's been surprisingly busy. Neil's had to do an emergency dash to the shops to get more stock.

"We've sold so many paninis, we ran out of grated cheese and we've had to change the cakes that we had out in the morning.

"We've been full of customers but there's also been people popping in on their lunch break to take cake back to work.

"We've got quite the following, and the first customer this morning was one of our Keighley regulars. They just feel welcome here."

Asked whether opening in April was planned, with better weather on the horizon, Richard admitted: "We'd have taken it whenever. We're not afraid of winter as we'll still get customers."