Café Main Street: From Viv Hope’s Post Office to Brenda and Nicola’s busy eatery
Bob hope has also been a long-time fixture
Café Main Street is where you’ll find the locals of Emmerdale enjoying a cuppa and a catch up. Housed in the former village shop and Post Office, the cafe has been serving up coffee and cake to its customers since 2011.
As its name suggests, the cafe is situated on Main Street, in the heart of Emmerdale, near Keepers Cottage and Mill Brook Cottage.
It is currently co-owned by Bob Hope, Brenda Walker, and Nicola King, who has a 20 percent stake in the business.
And serving up the beverages, barista with his own brand of old-school charm is Nicola’s father, Rodney Blackstock.
The history of Café Main Street in Emmerdale
Café Main Street’s building was first seen on screen in 1973, when it was the Beckindale Village Shop.
Incredibly, the building and then-shop dated all the way back until around 1700.
The Post Office
Café Main Street was also formerly the village Post Office. This was installed in 1975, but only mentioned on-screen occasionally and its interior was rarely seen.
In August 1993, Viv and Vic Windsor and their family – moved to the village and purchased the post office.
From then it became a central location and survived several local disasters, including the famous plane crash of December 1993.
In 1994, a gas explosion ripped through the post office. Viv was held at gunpoint by masked robbers in 1994. Then, on Christmas Day 1998, Vic was killed in a bungled burglary. The armed robber was Andy Sugden’s dad Billy Hopwood.
Viv remarried Bob Hope and continued to run the post office and cafe.
Then tragedy struck again in January 2011 when a fire claimed the life of postmistress Viv and her friend Terry Woods.
The post office was largely destroyed, so Viv’s widower Bob Hope decided to re-open exclusively as a café.
Bob’s new business
Bob launched Main Street Café in 2011, and although the business is still going, he’s definitely made a few mistakes along the way,
In 2015, Bob found himself on the wrong side of the law when he pinched money from the cafe till to cover a pay-day loan.
Bob roped Val Pollard in to pose as business partner Brenda Walker to secure the loan. However, he ended up getting arrested for fraud. Bob was bailed, but did eventually go to prison after getting into a fight.
Following his release, Bob came up with the idea of holding a regular mothers and children group in the cafe to bring in more revenue. However, this ended up being rather short-lived.
Financial woes for Café Main Street in Emmerdale
By August 2018, the Café was struggling to stay afloat. Bob made the decision to stop working there. He only collects the profits from his share if there were any left over.
It wasn’t long before Bob returned behind the counter, but the cafe soon faced total financial ruin after Brenda accidentally served a sandwich containing almonds to Dan Spencer, unaware he was severely allergic to them.
The incident left Dan wheelchair-bound and Brenda was threatened with expensive legal action.
That’s when Nicola King stepped in and decided to capitalise on Brenda’s misfortune.
Nicola offered Bob and Brenda £20,00 in exchange for a 20 percent share of the business, which they were forced to accept.
Bob now owns the B&B – alongside Nicola and Jimmy – and Brenda, Nicola and Jimmy, plus Rodney are usually seen behind the counter of the cafe.
Both Nicola and Brenda are renowned village gossips, so anyone having a private conversation in there should be warned: it won’t stay private for long!
Emmerdale usually airs weeknights on ITV at 7.30pm.
Classic Emmerdale usually airs every weekday on ITV3 at 6am and 6.30am, plus 1.30pm and 2.05pm.