THE move from classroom cook to bistro boss turned out to be quite a small move for Emma Bridge — about 100 yards to be exact.

For the last 12 years, 38-year-old Emma has been cooking the school meals for scores of youngsters at Stoke Gabriel village primary school.

This year she learned that the school kitchens are closing and the county council will be tendering to have meals brought into the school rather than cooked on site… and she no longer had a job.

But Emma refused to hang up her chef's hat. Instead she took over the old Red Slipper restaurant just 100 yards down the road in Stoke Gabriel and opened for business as a tea rooms and bistro.

Now she is even looking at tendering for the school contract to supply meals to school she used to work for.

Having renamed the restaurant Emma's, she has turned the business into a tea rooms for most of week with bistro nights on Friday and Saturday evenings, and a popular fish and chip night on Wednesdays.

Emma explained that the old red Slipper restaurant had been closed but she had a 'light bulb moment' after learning her school kitchens were closing.

"It's something I have always wanted to do but I wanted to wait until the children were older," she said.

She moved into the restaurant on February 26 and opened for customers on April 16, with a little help from her family.

Mum Pauline, dad Colin and her 16-year-old daughter Gabby all help out at the bistro, along with some of Gabby's school friends.

Emma lives in Stoke Gabriel with husband John and their two children Gabby and seven-year-old Rebecca.

Both children have sampled mum's food as pupils at the village school as well as at home.

While she was working at Stoke Gabriel school, Emma was cooking an average of 64 meals a day – even growing vegetables in the school garden for the kitchen.

She set up a 'dinner winner' raffle to encourage youngsters to eat their greens and helped the school win a Bronze Food for Life Award for her part in teaching the youngsters where their food comes from.

She also helped win a £3,000 national lottery grant to set up a cookery club.

Emma's parents ran the Smugglers Inn in Totnes for 30 years and she grew up working in the catering trade.

"I think I started when I was three years old wrapping cutlery for the wage of a packet of crisps and a bottle of Coke," she said.