Twenty years on, still baked by hand and with love, by people who care what it looks like when it reaches your table.
Andy is a City & Guilds trained baker. He started the business in 2006 — under a different name, in a much smaller kitchen — with a straightforward ambition: to supply the local community, and the businesses around it, with proper sourdough and pastries.
That second part matters. Supplying other food businesses was not something we added on later once the shop was busy. It was there from the first week, and it is still one of the three things we do.
We moved to our current home in Hedge End in 2010, and that is when the business became Happy Toast Bakery & Kitchen. The bigger kitchen changed what was possible, and things grew quickly from there — first into takeaway, then into catering.
Catering is now the largest part of what we do. Offices, weddings, birthdays, wakes, away-days, christenings. Rooms of six and rooms of two hundred.
Andy’s is the craft — the bread, the pastry, the technique behind them. Sarah’s is what happens next: how food is presented, how a table looks when guests walk in, and how to feed people well without making them choose between enjoying it and doing themselves good.
Between the two of us, that is the whole business.
If you have been following our journey on social media, you will have noticed our kitchen is a bit of a whirlwind. One minute we are frosting an indulgent batch of treats, and the next we are prepping nutrient-dense salads.
It’s not a contradiction, it’s a mission.
We believe that true wellness isn’t about restriction, it’s about balance. No food should ever be off limits — instead, we celebrate the harmony between soul-soothing indulgence and wholesome nourishment.
It is why you will find a Biscoff thick shake on the same menu as a quinoa salad bowl, and why a room we cater for never has an afterthought option sitting at the end of the table.
Our aim is to help people rediscover the joy of getting everyone together — at home, at work, wherever it happens — without the restaurant bill that usually comes with it.
We specialise in vibrant, artistically curated platters that put fresh ingredients and real flavour first. The food matters. So does how it looks when it lands.
A family business, still run by the two of us, with a team we trust.
We have catered for gluten-free guests for twenty years and take it seriously. We must be straight with you, though: we bake with flour in a single kitchen, we do not have a separate production line, and flour is airborne. We have never had an issue, but we cannot give a one hundred per cent guarantee against cross-contamination. Tell us what you need when you enquire and we will talk it through honestly.
Whether you are feeding a boardroom, a wedding or your own shop counter, we would love to hear about it.