A HUGELY popular cafe in Ulverston is planning on expanding its business to include a gourmet food takeaway restaurant.

The Hot Mango Cafe in Ulverston is branching out from its restaurant on King Street to a new hot and cold food takeaway 16 doors down.

The premises was previously occupied by Ships Wheel Cafe before it shut up shop more than five years ago.

Owner of The Hot Mango Cafe, Stef Lawson, saw the empty building as the perfect opportunity to add on to her already successful business.

“We’ve been doing takeaway food in the cafe for a while now but we’re struggling to keep up with the demand,” she said.

“We’re staying where we are as a cafe and would like the new space to be purely a takeaway.”

Mrs Lawson said the demand for takeaway options has been ‘huge’ across the past few years.

“We’re always trying to fulfil a higher demand,” she said.

“We don’t have time and space to operate a cafe and takeaway together in one building.”

The new takeaway will offer a host of hot and cold options including sandwiches, soups, hot pots, a salad bar and more.

Mrs Lawson, who has been running the business for the past eight years, said she will feel ‘a great sense of achievement’ if the plans are successful.

“When we first started this, we had no idea what it would become,” she said.

“We still can’t believe it’s going so well, it’s such exciting times for us all.”

Planning permission to convert the property from a cafe into a takeaway is currently pending.