More people are visiting this Merseyside suburb for its food and drink offering
More people are visiting this Merseyside suburb for its food and drink offering
If someone asked you what the best area in Merseyside is for food and drink, you might come up with an answer such as Lark Lane, Waterloo, or Oxton – and you’d probably be right. However, there’s one town which may not be at the top of your list, but which hospitality businesses there insist is ‘on the up’.
I’m talking about Halewood, a town which was once only really known to outsiders for its car factories and Everton FC’s training ground, Finch Farm. Now, many from different areas are visiting for its growing number of restaurants and cafes.
One such establishment is Casa Rima, a Mediterranean restaurant which opened on Baileys Lane in 2023, which has become hugely popular. Its chef, Kemal Coşkuncay, who lives just down the road in Speke, was named ‘Chef of the Year’ at the 2025 British Kebab Awards recently.
The menu offers everything from Kemal’s kebabs to pizza, pasta and burgers – a decision the team took so that ‘every member of the family can have something’. Speaking to the ECHO this week, Kemal claimed he was ‘proud’ to be part of the Halewood food and drink scene.
He said: “Halewood is the hidden gem. It is unspoiled. There’s good families, good couples, good businesses.
“Halewood used to be known all over the UK for sport, because of Finch Farm. Now it is known all over the UK as ‘the hidden gem’.
“The Eagle and Child is over 300 years old, there are Indian restaurants and other restaurants. Top class people are living here, but we didn’t know until we opened.
“Before, people from Halewood would travel to other places for good food and drinks, but now people from other places travel to Halewood. It is a pleasure to be here. We are so happy to be part of Halewood – and the locals here support us a lot.”
If you take one of the many buses to Halewood from Liverpool city centre, you’ll likely be feeling a little peckish after up to an hour travelling through the south of the city. That’s not a problem though, because as soon as you get off at Halewood Shopping Centre, you’ll be confronted with three options: Subway, Halewood Fish Bar and Pepe’s – a fast food restaurant serving piri piri chicken.
Pepe’s is definitely recommended for those who haven’t – or indeed have – tried their food at any of their locations across the UK and UAE. Affordable, filling and, most importantly, tasty, you’ll never go to Nando’s ever again once you sample their tangy, spicy, juicy chicken.
Customers can pick from six flavours (mango and lime; lemon and herb; mild; hot; extra hot; and extreme), while chicken can be eaten off the bone, in a burger, on loaded fries, or even in a quesadilla.
Other places to eat in Halewood include the Triange Cafe, Brunch Box and historic Eagle and Child pub. The Eagle and Child dates back to at least 1843, when it featured on the Tithe Map however, an Inn has existed on this site since the late 17th Century. The pub serves everything from sandwiches and tapas to gastro pub classics such as pies and bangers and mash.
On the edge of the town is Yew Tree Coffee Barn, which is situated on a 40-acre farm. Sisters Rachel Maskell and Katie Wilkes grew up on the land and opened the coffee shop in 2013, where visitors can enjoy a spot of breakfast or lunch surrounded by farm animals, including the popular alpacas.
Katie told the ECHO: “We started in 2013. I’d been travelling when I was younger and there was a big coffee shop culture. I really liked it and so I wanted to open a coffee shop when I got back, but I had to work and save up money, and everything like that.
“We’ve also opened The Barn which does weddings on the other side, which me and my sister run together. So, we’ve got the coffee shop and the wedding side of it as well.
The coffee shop is open Monday to Friday from 9am until 3pm, because the weddings take over the weekends now. We serve breakfasts all day, sandwiches, salads, soup – all homemade.”
Asked if Halewood is on the up, Katie said it is. She elaborated: “Halewood is growing quite quickly. We get people here from Widnes, Warrington, St Helens, and there’s even people in Halewood who tell us they never knew we were here. Halewood’s opening up in terms of people coming into ‘the country’, as they call us, and more people are finding us.
“There’s a large amount of new houses and new people in the area; we’ve had a lot of development over the past few years. Where the farm is based, on a little country road, we used to be surrounded by fields, but now we’ve got a few big housing estates around us.
“We’re finding we are a lot busier all the time. When we used to be quiet midweek, we’re now very busy all the time. There’s a lot more coffee shops and restaurants opening up and it’s just lovely to see because we need them. We’ve got an area which people can visit now because they know there’s more than one choice.”