What do surfers, seagulls and students have in common? Well, down at East Sands, their love for the Cheesy Toast Shack’s delicious toasties unites them all.
Run by Kate Carter-Larg and her husband Sam, the Cheesy Toast Shack specialises in indulgent toasties – filled to the brim with everything from buffalo chicken to mac and cheese and, of course, oozing with oodles of cheese. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to speak with Kate about all things cheese toasties and the wonderful community they have created on East Sands.
Originally from Dorset, Kate's journey began when she met Sam in Bali, in 2014, while they were both travelling. What seemed like a holiday romance blossomed into something greater, with the couple initially trying long distance until Kate decided to come visit Scotland and immediately fell in love. At this point neither, Kate or Sam were working. But, both having some money saved, they decided to just take a leap and the Cheesy Toast Shack was born.
Credit: Instagram/Cheesy Toast Shack.
Choosing what to sell was easy because ‘who doesn’t like a cheese toastie’. The couple bought a trailer and took it across the country selling toasties along the way. ‘In the beginning’, she said, ‘we did anything that we could’ from festivals to weddings to try and make a name for themselves.
And it worked! They managed to secure a pitch at Glastonbury during their second year of trading and with five places across the city, they became the biggest independent traders for the Edinburgh Fringe, a remarkable achievement from a business so new. That success then led to them being offered their place down on East Sands and the rest, as they say, is history.
Credit: Instagram/Cheesy Toast Shack.
While it started as just a place to get a bite, it has turned into so much more: ‘It isn’t just about cheese toasties anymore, it's a lifestyle… we have people come down and leave their car keys with us while they go for a swim’. That they have managed to create such a warm and welcoming community is a testament to their care for their customers. Kate agrees, replying immediately when I ask, that the people, both customers and staff, are her favourite part of their business.
Just as I’m about to broach the question of if they’d ever expand, she beats me to it. She claims she gets asked this question a lot and while she thinks it would be amazing, part of what she loves about being independent is that she can get to know the regulars and connect with all of her customers. From the students to the locals, as well as the animal population of St Andrews. Dogs being the most welcome, to seagulls who are definitely not! It seems to me that people come for the cheese toasties but stay for the chat.
Credit: Instagram/Cheesy Toast Shack.
This approach to business is clearly serving them well as the Cheesy Toast Shack has only continued to flourish. Kate admits, "I worry sometimes that people will just stop coming but right now we’re on a good trajectory.” She continues, that while being self-employed is stressful and ‘it's not without a lot of hard work’ it is also ‘really rewarding’ and she loves the work-life balance that she has and the fact that she can drop her kids off at school every day. She laughs saying that she still has a lot of ‘pinch me moments’ that this is her life now but that she couldn't be happier with the way it turned out.
I ask her if she ever imagined herself in this industry and she replies, ‘definitively not’, partly because her parents were ‘very old school’ so working in hospitality after doing her degree is not something that she had ever considered but that ‘I'm very lucky to be doing something that makes me so happy’.
Students in their nerve-wracking final years of university, unsure about what their next step should be, can take comfort from Kate’s story. It reminds us that being brave enough to follow your heart often works out in the most amazing but perhaps unexpected ways.
Finally, the question that everyone has been wondering. Has she ever been attacked by the infamous East Sands seagulls? ‘Only once,’ she says laughing – and it was while doing a cheese pull for social media.
If you have never been to the Cheesy Toast Shack before or haven’t been in a while, consider this your sign to get yourself down to East Sands and treat yourself to a toastie. But, be warned, the seagulls love them just as much.
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