Welcome to tuck shop caffe
Great time, Great Cafe
Tuck Shop Café is an independent British Dubai based company specialising in the provisions of fresh, healthy
and affordable catering for schools.
Tuck Shop Café is a HACCP certified British Dubai based company specialising in the provisions of fresh, healthy and affordable catering for schools. We have been offering high quality catering services to schools since 2006. Tuck Shop Café is a family run company employing staff to work as a team in schools in Dubai.
Research shows that a healthy lunchtime meal helps concentration and learning ability in the afternoon. We believe in a pleasant environment for students, our staff are friendly, knowledgeable and helpful when serving meals for students of all ages. A variety of menus are offered daily catering for each school’s different requirements including our online ordering service offering multiple main courses and snacks daily, full live service canteens, grab and go stations, packed lunch service for classrooms and school trips, live barbeques, salad/sub/spud bars, pasta stations, Expresso cafes and more. We are always looking for new ways to create fun healthy dishes for our menus. We pride ourselves with being versatile and flexible, where there is a will there is a way.
Where we differ from other catering companies is, all of our meals are freshly prepared daily in the kitchens at each individual school. This means we can prepare additional food to avoid running out and that food is fresh for each service and kept at the correct temperatures. We offer gluten and dairy friendly options daily along with vegetarian and vegan options. We have a nut free policy and our menus are free from artificial chemicals, colours, flavours and sweeteners. By clever food combining we are able to add extra vitamins and nutrients to our menus. We use fresh fruits and vegetables to sweeten and add moisture to our baked goods which are low in salt and added sugar, we blend plenty of vegetables and lentils into our vegetarian and vegan dishes including our pitta pizza sauce. Our soups and sauces are mainly gluten friendly, thickened with starch vegetables instead of flour. We use good quality meats to create children’s favourite dishes, including our gluten free bolognese (beef minced onsite to ensure great quality), chicken strips coated with our crispy oat blend, gluten free beef and chicken burgers and our much-loved gluten free chicken/vegetable and paneer curries. We use whole-meal sandwich bread, rolls, wraps and paninis, brown rice and whole-wheat pasta packed with fibre.
We provide a dedicated catering team in each school we cater for including, catering manager, chef, supervisor, barista and catering staff to ensure the running of the kitchens, canteen’s and cafes are to a high standard. All staff hold Dubai visas, police clearance, the relevant hygiene training certificates and work experience. TSC staff received child safety training from the schools in which we cater, a number of our staff have first aid training and fire safety training. All our menu items are Dubai Municipality approved. We believe that teamwork is imperative to the success of running a school canteen, TSC is proud to have a high retention of staff, offering on-site and off-site training, termly bonuses, achievable daily targets, regular working hours, guaranteed monthly salary, holidays, support and an annual team building party.
If sufficient space is available, we can grow some of our own vegetables, fruits and herbs for use in our salads, sandwiches and sauces. School gardens are a great way to teach student about nutrition, the connection between growing food and good diets, develop life skills and increase environmental awareness. Tendering to the garden teaches children responsibility, patience and teamwork. It provides opportunity to bring science, math, social studies and visual arts of life through hands-on learning. Vegetable gardens let children taste the wonders of fresh foods. The environment is a high priority to Tuck Shop Café, we can supply waste coffee beans, fruits and vegetable peelings to fertilise the vegetable garden and feed school farm animals. Where possible we use reusable crockery and cutlery. For take away items we use compostable biodegradable take away coffee cups/lids, salad packs, hot food packs, fruit/granola pots and crockery.
We can assist with kitchen and canteen set-up, including Dubai Municipality approved design layout for both the kitchen and service areas, extractor exhaust and ducting plus canteen graphics. Working closely with the school to get an inviting harmonious eating experience for the children and staff. Our Expresso Cafes have played an important role within each school we cater for. The cafes are a great place for parents to find out more about our company and the food that their children are eating. Our customised coffee beans are freshly roasted in the Orbis Coffee Roastery, served with a selection of fresh and alternative milks. We offer a wide selection of healthy smoothies, freshly baked banana bread, oat cookies, fruit muffins along with sandwiches, wraps, sushi, salads and more. We have an amazing artist that decorates our cafes and canteens with awesome art work to give them that WOW affect.
Student council and parent meetings are often arranged, suggestion boxes can be placed in the canteens and cafes to ensure we gain feedback to keep the students and parents happy. Our staff encourage the students to give meal feedback and often ask if they would like any additional menu items added to school menus, maybe a dish from their home country or a favourite family meal.
We have been catering for Dubai schools for nearly two decades and are extremely proud of what we and our awesome catering team have not only achieved but have to offer. We have UAE catering experience, a wealth of children’s catering knowledge, a great understanding of what children and parents want and how to provide it well. We turn food court favourite dishes from around the world into healthy meals for all ages as well as offering a range of traditional main meals, live stations and so much more. We know which live stations work well and how to manage them. We pride ourselves on finding solutions for all catering events, large and small, we have a great relationship with Dubai Municipality which has allowed us to be creative with our menus and catering services. We have a harmonious relationships with the school in which we cater, we are reliable, flexible, willing and capable to grow with schools. Tuck Shop offer a unique catering service, offering professional corporate yet boutique catering. We are dedicated to providing the best possible catering experience, we can offer wrap around catering, full canteen service, live stations, event catering, parent catering and more. We bring new products and dishes to our menus regularly. During the pandemic we launched our online menus, classroom deliveries and collection points which have been so successful they are still in place in some locations. We have never, been unable to provide a solution for a catering request.
Brother sister, Simon and Tiffany are the proud owners of Tuck Shop Café. They moved to the UAE in 1975 with their family and consider Dubai to be their home.
Simon studied and boarded in Kent and received a business diploma at Reading University. With over 20 years’ experience in the catering industry, Simon set up his first jacket potato restaurant Taste Buds in Bahrain in 1998. Simon then moved to Dubai and went on to open other restaurants and cafes including Café Revive, Marks and Spencers, Deira and The Lounge, Marks and Spencers, Festival City. It was during this time Simon was approached by a Dubai school group that he decided to dedicate his time and energy into school catering. With many year’s experience, Simon has built up great relationships with suppliers and the Dubai Municipality which allows him to assist with kitchen, café and canteen design and set-up. Simon sources local companies and products that can be tailored to fit the TSC school menus, House of Pops and our new smoothies range are perfect examples of this. Tiffany studied at Waingels College, Woodley, Berkshire after attending Sharjah English School. Tiffany returned to Dubai in 1995 and worked alongside their father in his Dubai indoor play unit, Toby’s Jungle Adventure, Burjuman Centre. A keen baker and cook she attended cookery classes and managed the café within Toby’s Jungle Adventure, supplying cakes and catering for parties and functions. Tiffany joined Simon in 2008 working in school canteens and cafes, listening to the schools, students and parents Tiffany creates the menus and works closely with each of the TSC chefs and Dubai Municipality to ensure all menu items are healthy tasty varied and fun. Both being parents with children in Dubai schools, Simon and Tiffany launched Tuck Shop Café with a passion to transform the way children eat by providing access to healthy, fun and affordable meals in schools. They have worked closely with a nutritionist to create child inspired, nutritionally balanced and delicious menus healthier without compromising the taste. Always searching for new menu ideas and local suppliers to create the very best breakfast, snack and meals served from Tuck Shop Café.
Where we differ from other catering companies is, all of our meals are freshly prepared daily in the kitchens at each individual school. This means we can prepare additional food to avoid running out and that food is fresh for each service and kept at the correct temperatures
Tuck Shop Café is an independent British Dubai-based company specializing in the provision of fresh, healthy, and affordable catering for schools.