A café is set to reopen under new ownership weeks after closing.

The Octagon Café, based off Pummery Square in Poundbury, will reopen its doors today.

It was reported as closed earlier this month, when the previous owner sold the business. 

The business has been taken over by husband and wife team, Mark and Lisa Lovell, who have had previous experience in the hospitality industry within Dorset.

Lisa said the couple are ‘so excited’ to be opening their doors for customers at the site, believed to be the first café in the urban area development which had been running for 17 years.

Described by Lisa as ‘beautiful,’ the eight-sided Octagon Café will retain its name. “Yes, it just has to be the Octagon- it could never be anything else,” the new owner said.

Moving to Dorset seven years ago, the couple opened a guest house before they ran the Good Life Café on St Mary Street in Weymouth for the last four years.

“I’ve got a passion for cooking, Mark’s got a passion for baking, and we opened up in May 2020, during the first lockdown.”

Lisa revealed that this gave the couple a chance to ‘do the place up’ and they carried on trading during lockdown by offering afternoon tea deliveries as well as deliveries for Sunday roast dinners.

After four years, Lisa and Mark decided they were looking for a change of scene as they got older.

Dorset Echo: Lisa said: “The Good Life was great, but it was too big and involved getting up the stairs.”

The couple previously had nine staff on the books at the Good Life and wanted a smaller and more manageable business with the heart of the community.

“We wanted to be involved more with local people and we felt that Poundbury is more about the local community.

Lisa added that a perk of moving to Poundbury is the year long tourism that the area brings, compared to the seasonal tourism at seaside town Weymouth.

“Tourism to Poundbury is a year-round thing compared to other areas,” she said.

 Lisa gave a run-down of what customers can expect when the establishment reopens. She said: “There will be a few things from the previous menu, we will still be serving breakfasts and lunches, but also homemade cottage pie, curries and specials such as linguine.”