EXCLUSIVE VIDEO tour of Honiton's Yellow Deli

The Yellow Deli on Honiton High Street officially opened on May 27 - offering customers their signature steamed sandwiches and staying open most days from 7am - 11pm.

What used to be the Red Cow Inn, had been under construction for five years prior to opening. It was acquired in February 2014 by the Twelve Tribes religious community who own Stentwood Farm in Dunkeswell. The group live on the premises, which they run as a farm along with a cafe - also open to the public.

Honiton Nub News caught up with one of its members, Andrew Ensor, to ask him about the Yellow Deli project and what motivated it.

He said: "We always had visions that we would set something up in Honiton, so as to be more a part of the community here. I don't think we realised how long it was going to take us when we first got into it, but we wanted to do it right and to create it in a specific way.

"We did all of the work ourselves. Sometimes there were just three of us working down here, and on the odd occasion there were about 20 of us. We also had a lot of help from our communities abroad.

"We reconfigured everything. We added a two-storey extension out the back; created an oak-frame sun room; opened up everything upstairs by taking down walls and raising the ceiling and inserted a big pole into the floor for our spiral staircase.

"The building went through a lot of structural change to become what it is now."

With regards to how business has been doing over the past eight weeks since opening, he said: "It's been very good really. It's great seeing people come in and how amazed they are at what we've created.

"Many people say to us, 'why did you choose Honiton?' and the answer is that we love Honiton. We wanted to create this for Honiton - a space that people could come and feel at home.

"We're always busy at lunchtimes and coffee and cake is very popular in the mornings."

Commenting on the menu, he said: "We specialise in hot sandwiches - that's our niche. We have a unique machine called the sandwich steamer which makes the bread taste like it's fresh out of the oven.

"We do great puddings and desserts too - our carrot cake is very popular - and they're all made with spelt flour too."