A TOP-NOTCH café is over the moon after scooping the top place in our Eat Out to Help Out competition.

We narrowed down eateries from across Essex to 20 finalists and you voted for your favourite.

The Platform Two Café in Chappel received the most votes and has been named the winner.

The café is located at the Chappel and Wakes Colne Station and is a part of the East Anglian Railway Museum.

Visitors are treated to a unique eating experience with a food and drinks being served at the station with an authentic train theme.

The café was taken over by Stour Valley Catering in July.

Stour Valley Catering owners Amy Rogers and Ross Napper said: “We were super excited to hear the news of our win and cannot wait to share the news with our customers.

“We were so shocked when we got the phone call.

“It was a lovely surprise to know that our fantastic and loyal customers were behind us and voted. It was great to see new faces visit after seeing us in the final 20 to check us out.

“We only took over the café in July and didn’t even know if we would be accepted on to the eat out to help out scheme as it was all quite a rush.

“Our 1953 vintage British Railways carriage is a different dining room to most cafés in the area.

“We have a great customer base backed up by a lot of the volunteers and museum workers at East Anglian Railway Museum.

“We only took over the café in July and found the measures we needed to put in place quite straight forward and it’s become the way of how we run the café now.

“We run Stour Valley Catering which was massively impacted by Covid as our diary of weddings and events were all postponed like many other wedding suppliers in the trade.

“We truly are thankful to all the readers and our customers who voted for us.”