About
Leafy Oak
Tea Room

We are an established family run business offering great quality homemade food in a relaxing environment.

Situated along the B1502 in between Hoddesdon and Hertford is the perfect place for family and friends to meet up and have a catch up over fantastic coffee and a homemade slice of cake.

Our menu offers light breakfast bites, lunch and afternoon tea all served by our helpful friendly staff.

In the colder months you can keep warm with a delicious hot chocolate in a cosy oak framed building and in the warmer month you have the choice of lots of outside seating taking in all the views.

We also have a small play area that your little ones can enjoy giving you a chance to have that much needed break!

Enjoy a walk? We are right on the side of a public footpath which leads either towards Hertford Heath or Ware.

We have the added advantage of sharing the site with Leafy Oak Nursery which means once you have re-charged and refuelled on homemade treats you can then go and check out their vast selection of plants and accessories for all your garden needs.

The family bought the farm land in 1993, they moved into the prefab bungalow and got straight to work on making good the run down farm area. They started growing a small selection of bedding plants in two small garden greenhouse until they were gifted a small polytunnel from which they then had enough produce to start selling at local boot sales. They did this for a number of years until they had enough money to buy their first large commercial greenhouse which was purchased from Hertford Castle grounds in 1995. They continued to sell at boot sales for many more years until they purchased and built their second larger commercial glass greenhouse in 1998 named ‘Dave’ because one man built the whole thing in record time and his name was Dave! Once the glass house works were completed they phased out the boot sales and officially opened the gates to the public.

In early 2002 they then purchased their first large polytunnel enabling them to grow more varieties of plants. From here on the nursery went from strength to strength growing in popularity from word of mouth.  They made lots of improvements and employed two members of staff.

The nursery became really popular so a second polytunnel was purchased and built in 2008 to help keep up with the demand.

In 2019 after many years of running the nursery Carole and Philip decided to retire. They handed the business over to their youngest daughter Amy, who now runs the nursery and works hard to make improvements and keep up with the growing demand.

Keeping within the family, their eldest daughter decided to start up a new business and open a tea room on the same site as the nursery.

With the assistants of a rural government grant the work started on building early 2020 and was built throughout the lockdown.

The tea room officially opened in November 2020 but was only open for a few days before the lockdown hit. We then re-opened again in December 2020 only to close again mid-December, this time it was for a long period of time.

Finally, on the 12^th April 2021 the tea room opened again to allow customers to sit outside, shortly after the inside was allowed open.

The tea room has grown from strength to strength and many improvements have been made along this journey including increasing the size of our cake counter display, expanding our kitchen area, upgrading and installing new equipment and employment. But one of the biggest changes was the installation of the new canopy area over the decking. This has created a bigger seating area and because of its clever design it has 22 bi-fold doors which means in the winter it remains a dry enclosed space (with newly installed heaters) but in the summer all three sides can be opened up to create a shaded seating area.