An American-style diner will open on Wirral next month.
Serving up some classic American comfort food, Bootleggers Cafe is set to open on Seabank Road in Wallasey.
Husband and wife duo Cory and Germaine Isham, who spent almost 15 years living and working in Buffalo, New York, have returned to Merseyside to open up their first restaurant.
The diner will specialise in traditional English and American comfort food, along with a range of vegetarian and vegan dishes.
Germaine Isham, co-owner of Bootleggers Cafe, said: “When I became pregnant with our first child we decided it would be better to move back to the US, to Buffalo NY.
“My husband had been a Brockport student which was near Buffalo, so that's where our love of food originated.
“Buffalo is like the food mecca of cuisine diversity and most of it centralised around comfort food with it being a working class city and all.
“The cultural diversity of Buffalo cuisine just created this melting pot of incredible dining experiences and flavours.
“We both worked in the food industry during our 14 years there, me as a professional server and Cory worked in a local smokehouse.
“From there he just learned so much about BBQ food and spent years cooking at festivals, events and large family and friends gatherings. Our culinary skills just kept getting better and better and we started to experiment with different recipes and cooking methods.
“We decided to come back to the UK, Wallasey especially, because it is my hometown, I missed it and wanted the kids to grow up in the neighbourhood that I loved.
“We always knew we wanted to cook so we started with a catering company last year, and did quite a few summer events that were hugely successful.
“We walked past the "old flying dutchman" at 237 Seabank Road as it was being renovated and we knew right there and then that it was going to be our cafe.”
Bootleggers Cafe is set to launch next month, with a provisional date of March 28 in place.
