Peterborough convenience store celebrates 10 years of serving the community

Ravi and Githa bought the P&P Lodge Store at 98-100 Fengate 10 years ago this month and say that they have been proud to serve their local community for the last decade.

The store itself is over 60 years old and used to be much smaller, with lodgings on top, giving the shop its name.

While the Fengate area has changed greatly with increasing industry and flats opening nearby, the shop has been open the whole time and even throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

After purchasing the building and moving to Peterborough in 2011, Ravi and Githa set about transforming the store and, last February, completed an entire refit.

Githa said: “We’ve noticed a lot of changes in the last 10 years with new flats, new businesses and people visiting, the whole area has gotten a lot busier. This has seen our number of customers grow and that is great because part of the reason we wanted to run the shop was because we wanted to add some community spirit to the area. We added more signs to make it clearer we were open for business and advertised that we were here to serve the community and that is what we have been able to do.”

As well as providing all the essentials you would expect from a corner shop, the family business also produces its own fresh sandwiches and hot food such as sausage rolls and pizza toasts.

Ravi added: “We also pride ourselves on our homemade food and people travel from as far away as five miles to get it.

“We really feel good about serving our community. When the pandemic began, we remained open and were able to be there for people to provide essentials when shelves in the supermarkets were empty, we could see how happy they were about that. One of our proudest moments has to be seeing the shop all refurbished and seeing a lot more customers. We have exciting plans for the future and are really looking forward to it”