Entertainment Swindon

TJs Cafe on Hunts Rise, within the South Marston Industrial Park, is still cut off due to the current land owners of the car park adjacent to the well known cafe, formerly known as The Spitfire Cafe due to it being built on the site of the WW2 Spitfire factory.

We went along to the cafe this weekend to check out the popular Samturbs Car Meet and to check out TJs MEGA English Breakfast that we have been told we should check out for months, so we thought time to get down there and hit two birds with one stone.

We already had been made aware of the issues surrounding the access to the front of the cafe, but it was only when we arrived, we saw the true impact affecting the small cafe. First finding TJs Cafe, driving up and down Hunts Rise for ten minutes, we could not find the building, we entered the address into the satnav, and still could not find the cafe, until we pulled over and asked a passing jogger if they knew where TJs was, and we were pointed in the direction of the cafe a few yards ahead. Why could we not see it? Well a large white lorry had been deliberately parked across the entrance to the car park adjacent to the cafe which was big enough to block the small cafe from view from the road side.

Parking up behind the cafe, we met up with members of the car meet and chatted to the cafe owner who explained to us what was going on. The now owners, a Swindon based transport company called KT ALB Ltd, part of the Troka Group Ltd purchased the land in front of the cafe nearly 2yrs ago and without warning walked into the cafe and told the owners of TJs that they could no longer use the car park and then took action to totally block the access, not only to the car park that the new owners now owned, but also blocking access to the cafes own parking bay of six spaces by placing two large lorries at either end of the car park.

Since the blocking off of the car park, footfall for the cafe has gone down, speaking to the owners, we were told that they used to employ four people on a friday, but since the blockade by the KT ALB lorries, footfall has reduced, leaving the TJs to reduce their staff to two on friday.

Devastated owners of TJs Cafe first approached the Swindon Advertiser back December 2024. At this point, owners Kim & Jim Couling had owned the cafe for three years, now 18months on from the Adver story, the problem if anything has got worse.

Speaking to the Adver in 2024, the owners said that they had built up a loyal following of customers from as far as Wantage and Gloucester with regular car meets, and even a Santa’s Grotto amongst the regular events, as well as customers from the industrial estate itself.

It has sparked an angry reaction from the cafes customers, and there were growing concerns that it would lead to job losses, fast forward to today and speaking to Kim, she told us: “We used to have four staff working on a Friday, but since the blocking of the car park, we have had to reduce staffing to just two on a Friday”.

Speaking about passing trade from passing traffic, Kim went on to say: “With the lorry blocking the visibility of our cafe and signage from the roadside, we have seen this passing trade reduce also, and its not just our business that is being affected”.

When the Swindon Advertiser covered this emerging story back in December 2024, it was unknown what KT ALB Ltd would do with that land, The Adver approached KT ALB, but no response, Entertainment Swindon has tried making contact for the past two weeks with zero response.

The only response in the past 18months was by the director of KT ALB after blocking access to the cafe and the cafes own parking spaces. This was made direct to the owners of TJs Cafe “Its my land, I’ll do what I want with it”.