THE BEGINNING
After holidaying on narrowboats for many years Paul Partridge started to seriously think about giving up a full time job, buying a boat and leaving behind his beloved life in Cornwall to live and work on a narrowboat full time on The Shropshire Union Canal.
After viewing several boats he settled up “Forget me Not” a 53 foot narrowboat built in the year 2000.
Whilst the search for a boat was happening, Paul did lots of research, as by then, the seemingly crazy idea of a pizza oven on a narrowboat had been born.
The refit
Combining the boat and the half ton oven wasn’t a task for the faint hearted. Luckily local boatyard Chas Hardern Boats in Beeston were prepared to tackle the task. The boat had been purchased in January 2018 at Crick, Northamptonshire and the two week cruise to Beeston was underway.
By May of 2018 the newly named “Baked on Board” was born and very quickly became locally know as ‘The Pizza Boat’
During that first summer Baked on Board attended several canal side festivals, floating markets etc as well running a regular route on their now familiar stretch of ‘The Shroppie’ and was met with a great response from Boaters, walkers, villagers and festival goers.
“This was when we really realised that we weren’t completely mad and that this could really work”
Pandemic Challenges
Sadly in March 2020 Covid-19 struck and one by one, all planned events were cancelled. Not disheartened Paul decided to once again look at opening up the pizza business and returning to a local route.
The Canal and Rivers Trust (CRT) were unable to offer any specific guidelines for traders with regarding to lockdown restrictions so it was deemed that Baked on Board was a take away, Paul would be working from home and travelling to work was permitted the green light was on for summer 2020.
During the summer a new and extended route was formulated taking in Waverton, Beeston, Bunbury, Barbridge, Nantwich and Audlem.
Business boomed with Paul and his team open 4 nights per week, utilising a ‘time slot’ booking system had been a revelation and was clearly the way forward for future years.
“2020 was the oddest of years, yet from a business point of view, our best yet”
Your support means the world to us. We are looking forward to evolving Baked on Board, and the prospects for 2025 and beyond are exciting! Thank you
PAUL "THE PIZZA GUY"