County Durham pizza van owner opens restaurant in ‘dream come true’

Giddy Goose Pizza opened on Newmarket Street in Consett on April 12.

Until then, the business had been operating out of a trailer to great success with a perfect five-star rating on Google Reviews.

It is something owner Rhys Turner has wanted to do for ‘years’, and had a vision for how the place was going to look down to the wood panelling on the walls – something he said might have been seen as a bit ‘out there’ by some punters.

(Image: The Northern Echo) “This has been a dream for years,” he said.

“We’ve worked on this project for 18 months plus and it’s still sinking in.

“I don’t think it has sunk in yet quite, yesterday I came up with my fiancée and we just stopped and looked and I’m like ‘we’ve done it!’

(Image: The Northern Echo) “I’m really really happy with the finished product, we’re happy with the menu, the decor, we love it.” 

(Image: The Northern Echo) And Rhys, 33, is delighted with how the first few days of trading at the modern-looking restaurant have gone.

“We’ve been as busy as we wanted to be for our first weekend open,” he said.

(Image: The Northern Echo) “But we’ve had fantastic feedback online, we’ve not had anything negative and I think that’s spurred on the bookings this week.”

Rhys’ ambition is to ‘put out some of the best food that Consett’s got’, and an expanded menu includes more quirky pizza toppings as well as the dynamic yellow and blue colour scheme running throughout the venue.

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(Image: The Northern Echo) His mam even acquired a food business licence so her traybakes could be sold at the restaurant.

“Over the weekend when it was busy and you’ve got people in the building there’s a buzz.

“There’s a buzz about it and it’s been really really good.”