Town Goes Bonkers For Cake

Luxury bakeries may be opening across the country but here the trend has been bucked with the opening of a discount outlet.

Bonkers in Loughborough, selling cut – price household goods for nearly fifty years, has a spin – off bargain bakery.

Offering cakes and delicacies starting at as little as 50 pence for a Portuguese custard tart wife of the married couple team behind the new enterprise Khatija Tajanni said with the children grown up and settled down she was looking for something to occupy herself.

She decided to learn from husband Abdul Kadar who runs the popular thrift store on Biggin Street.

“I’m learning from my husband who has been behind Bonkers for more than a decade. The bakery is also very cheap with produce baked in Leicester every morning and brought in fresh every day,” said Khatija.

She said they don’t have permission to bake on site so it’s made in the city and like the hardware store the prices are kept as low as possible.

“We sell chai for £1 a cup and baguettes and sandwiches as well as cakes and even homemade curries. We aim to be cheap and to cater for everybody including students and the elderly,” she added.

Husband Abdul Kadar Tajanni said Bonkers is part of the furniture in Loughborough having been open for nearly half a century.

“It started with Richard at the bottom of Churchgate where the green grocers used to be and has been passed through friends ever since with an offering to rival Home Bargains and B&M,” said Abdul.

“The business is based on the model of ‘stack it high and sell it cheap’,” he said.

“Bonkers is the mother of the bakery,” he added.

University student Mohammed Ettoun called in for lunch on his return for graduation.

“It will be successful I think,” he said.