Edge cafe Fox Hill Road: Sheffield cafe rises from the ashes after building was ram raided and set alight

Edge cafe on Fox Hill Road, in Fox Hill, opened on Monday, May 29 – nearly four years after a vehicle smashed into the front of the former cafe at the building on October 13, 2019, before the vehicle was set alight. The blaze tore through the cafe, spreading to the flats above, with firefighters battling the flames for more than three hours.

Suzi Dunn, a former phlebotomist, who already runs Echo cafe in Ecclesfield, told The Star it had been her ‘dream’ to open a second cafe in Fox Hill.

“I’ve always wanted a cafe here and I’ve been trying to get the landlord to let me have it for a good year and a half so to finally open here is a dream come true for me,” she said.

Suzi lives ‘on the doorstep’ of the new cafe and was a regular at the old cafe there, taking her children when they were still in the pram.

Those children are now aged 17 and 20 and are lending a hand at the new business. She told how the cafe’s name refers to Birley Edge, explaining: “Fox Hill was always called Birley Edge until the council put the estate up and called it Fox Hill. I wanted to call it Edge because it’s on the edge of both.”

Suzi started out making celebration cakes while still working as a phlebotomist and was originally looking to open a cake shop but ended up with a cafe in Ecclesfield. The menu at Edge features homemade cakes but one of the most popular items so far has been the breatkfast burrito, filled with bacon, egg, sausage, tomato and beans, or, for those wanting a healthier, vegetarian alternative, with avocado and salsa.

“I just wanted to create really nice food that people in the community can afford,” said Suzi.

“I think this is just what the community needs – somewhere people can come together and socialise over a coffee. Since we opened, we’ve had lots of people coming in and telling us how they used to go to the old cafe and never thought it would reopen after the fire, so they’re so glad we’re here now.”

Suzi told how she still remembers the night of the fire. “I’d been out that night and got a taxi back, and we went past about five minutes before it went up in flames,” she said. “It was so sad and the place looked awful afterwards but I’m pleased to say it looks great now and I absolutely love it here.”