Barry Nub News aims to support our community, promoting shops, businesses, charities, clubs and sports groups.

[H2] We will be profiling some of these businesses and organisations in a feature called 'Up Close in Barry'.

[H2] This week we spoke to Ruth Zeraschi, owner of Mrs Marco's Café to hear about the exciting changes happening at the Porthkerry café

Regular visitors to Porthkerry Country Park may have noticed changes to Marco's in the Park in recent weeks.

Over the last month, a new decking area has been built outside the café, owned by Ruth Zeraschi.

The new decking and parasols, which Ruth hopes will be open in time for the Easter holidays will provide a comfortable yet Covid-safe space to enjoy refreshments.

"These things are always more complicated than you initially think," Ruth told Nub News.

"When we actually began taking the old decking off, we realised we couldn't salvage anything," she said.

The replacement decking also fits into Ruth's eco-friendly ambitions for her café.

"Instead of wood, I'm using a material made of recycled plastic composites.

"Being sustainable has always been close to my heart. I try to keep the impact of the café down as much as possible.

"There's biodegradable cups, packaging, and cutlery. I don't use plastics, where I can and I pay for an extra recycling bin to accommodate it as well.

"I'm planning on looking at solar panels as well. So at least a percentage of the electricity we use in the future will be clean energy.

"As a tiny business, I do have to consider cost. At the moment, the packaging is so much more expensive than the horrible plastic stuff.

"I just think it's just so important. The amount of packaging that things come in is unbelievable. I'm hoping that the government look at that in the years to come," she said.

The new decking is not the first redevelopment Mrs Marco's Café has undergone: the first refit two years ago saw the front of house improved.

"It was very dated, it wasn't really fit for purpose because the industry has changed so much," said Ruth.

"Then the second phase was this time last year, when we extended the kitchen internally.

"We had put in for planning to build a big two-storey extension on the right-hand side.

"I can honestly say thank goodness we didn't do it. We'd have been pushed to the limit with the building itself and then obviously nobody foresaw COVID," she said.

Even with all the unexpected events of the year, Ruth thrives on keeping busy.

"I'm not good when I've got nothing to do. I do think it's going to be a shock when the park gets busy," she said.

"In the summer, I'll be doing 13-hour shifts, not having the day off in the holidays, because I'm working."