Bettys Cafe Tea Rooms, Ilkley

Bettys is a traditional Yorkshire family business, owned and run by the fourth generation of the original founding family. Its founder, a talented Swiss confectioner named Frederick Belmont, arrived in England able to speak very little English indeed. Having lost his travel documents with his destination address, he confronted many passers by at Kings Cross Station before finding someone who spoke enough French to decipher that his destination was actually Bradford. Once settled in Yorkshire, Belmont married a local girl, established a craft bakery in Harrogate and opened his first Bettys Café Tea Rooms there in 1920. All Bettys tea rooms comprise a bakery shop as well as a café, and there are currently six tea rooms, one each located in Harrogate, Northallerton, Ilkley, RHS Harlow Carr (Harrogate) and two in York. In 1962 the business merged with one of the countries most respected tea and coffee merchants, Taylors of Harrogate, whose business had been founded in 1886 and which is perhaps best known for its ‘Yorkshire Tea’ blend. Bettys shops and tea rooms are now famous for baking and selling handmade bread and beautiful cakes, blending proper tea, and roasting delicious coffee. They also run a prestigious Cookery School and an Online Shop. Taking tea at Bettys was always, and still remains, a special occasion.