It seems the list of shops disappearing from our high streets is endless – but a bakery in one town centre has been serving up pastries and cakes from the exact same spot for the last 93 years. As it prepares to safeguard its future with a plan to build flats, Joe Crossley went along to find the secrets to its success...

If you walk down through Sittingbourne at lunchtime you will no doubt see a queue of hungry customers at the door of A.E Barrow and Sons.

The shop, with its dark green frontage, is an iconic part of the High Street which has been selling bakes, pastries and cakes since 1931.

But with so many independent and big businesses closing down up and down the country, what’s the secret to its survival?

“We have really lovely customers some of who have been coming here since I started up in the 1980s,” managing director Simon Reynolds explained.

“You need that core clientele to survive, but that goes for any business. You also need new customers as well of course.

“We have also been at the same prominent location in the town centre since we opened which helps.”

But what keeps these peckish people returning time and again to Barrow’s rather than Greggs, Subway or getting a supermarket meal deal?

“We have had fantastic products that are at a reasonable price which means customers keep coming”, answered Simon.

“Everything we sell is made by hand and most of the recipes we use to make the products are those used by my granddad, William Barrows.

“While some things like birthday cakes have changed massively with modern trends, most of what we still do is the same.

“Our price lists from 1984 show that, while the cost has gone up, the products are largely the same.

“Most of what we do is made fresh on the day – for example our most popular product, ring doughnuts, are made on the day as after that they aren’t as nice.

Watch how the ring doughnuts are made below

“That’s what makes us different from the supermarkets and chains. We also have our cafe and takeaway orders but the shop is what pays the bills.”

The 1984 price list shows those popular doughnuts, now £1.35, cost 16p 40 years ago, while sausage rolls were just 18p. They cost £1.60 today.

Mr Reynolds has been running the day-to-day operations for almost two decades.

He knows the trade like the back of his hand, although hadn’t originally wanted to be part of the family business.

After leaving school at 16 he found an apprenticeship working on a farm in Lower Halstow as a stockman, despite his grandfather, William Barrow, wanting him to enter the baking trade.

However, just before turning 20, Simon left the farm after a falling out and asked to work at Barrow’s for a few months while he looked for another job.

That was in 1982. By the 1990s he was helping his mum, Jean Reynolds, to run the business and took over officially in 2003.

Now, 42 years later, Simon continues to run Barrow’s with his wife Kate, who he met in the bakery in 1986.

He added: “The staff make us who we are. We have lots of long-serving bakers and shop ladies who keep this place running.”

One of these is manager Alison Stevens who has worked at Barrows for 33 years.

“I love the social side of things here,” the Gadby Road resident said.

“Both with the customers who I have got to know and the ladies out front and bakers in the back.

“We have a really good team who are all lovely people.

“One of my favourite things about working here for so long is that I have got to see different generations of customers come to the bakery.

“You see them come as a child and then as a grown-up with their children. It’s really beautiful.”

Meanwhile, Dave Stevens has worked behind the scenes for 44 years.

While thinking of retirement, the foreman says he’ll miss the bakery when he leaves after getting used to waking up at “4am on the dot”.

Working alongside him is Ryan Wooton. While just 27, he has nine years of baking experience under his belt.

After leaving school at 18 he had been looking for a job when he walked down the High Street and saw a vacancy at Barrow’s.

“I have never looked back since,” he added, “There’s always something different to make and I love working with my hands.

“It’s quite creative really.”

The continuity of the bakery recipes and its hard-working staff means it's easy to see why customers keep coming back – they know what they are going to get for their money.

Of course, there have been evolutions.

“Consumer habits change all the time and we have to adapt to that”, Simon said.

“One big change has been the themed days like Mother's Day, Father's Day and birthdays

“When I first started people used to buy a bunch of flowers but now people pay out on a box of cakes.

“People spend a lot of money on birthday cakes as well which have become more colourful and brighter but also more expensive.

“Days like Valentine's Day and Halloween are also great for business. Really it's the American sort of event which has shifted habits.

“People are also more health conscious and are aware of allergens which is a bit of a challenge but we sell gluten-free products.

“Our lunchtime trade has also become the busiest time of day for us when it used to be teatime when people finished work.”

Production methods have changed at the bakery.

Foreman Dave explains that, thanks to technological improvements, night shifts have become a thing of the past.

“We used to have eight bakers on the day shift and then a couple of bakers on the night shift,” he said, “But now we have just six on the days and none on nights thanks to the machinery.”

Simon is also in the process of future-proofing the business.

One step he hopes to take is to knock down part of the bakery and build flats behind it.

The building was constructed by his granddad when he first bought the leasehold of the Carlton Cafe in 1931 for £500.

The building cost £200 to put up which today would be around £16,000 – not bad for something that has been standing for more than 90 years.

This will condense the bakery and make it more manageable while retaining the same output.

With Simon having no intentions of retiring anytime soon it’d be no surprise to see Barrow’s in the High Street for many years to come, still serving William Barrow’s tried and tested products.