Rhondda pub opens new village store and café

The Pentre Comrades Club in Pentre, Rhondda, has opened a sustainability-focused village store and community café.

Publicans Denise Roberts and Helen Roderick have run Pentre Comrades Club for 30 years, with an aim of tackling the area's lack of local services while helping to form community connections. 

Many facilities within the former coal-mining village in Wales have closed down in the last 20 years, including schools, shops, day centres and libraries.

The community shop, which has been launched through two Community Services Fund grants from Pub is The Hub, now provides local essentials at an affordable price. 

Sustainable shopping

Sustainability is a major ethos of the business, with the village store enabling people to refill their own containers by weight, cutting the use of plastic and helping the environment. The shop also offers eggs from a local farmer and there are plans to extend its offer of local produce. 

"We know that people want to belong and we know that our community is still very close knit and connected, so we want to provide a resource for them which can replace those missing amenities and provide a place for that community engagement," says Roberts.

Pub is The Hub is a not-for-profit organisation that helps pubs to diversify and provide essential local services. It has been supporting projects in rural areas across Wales after receiving a grant of £25,000 from The Royal Countryside Fund.

"The Pentre Comrades Club is an example of great publicans focusing on what their local rural community needs," says Pub is The Hub regional advisor Roger Belle. "This is really the hub of its local area."

(Above image: Denise Roberts, MP Chris Bryant, publican Helen Roderick, Pub is The Hub regional advisor Roger Belle)

You may also be interested in…