This Italian family institution spanned 4 generations (from 1893 to 2003 when it ceased trading. It was the ‘to-go-to place’ in Wick for ice cream, coffee, hot snacks, confectionery, Sunday Papers and tobacco.
Cabrelli’s was popular meeting place and social hub, and greatly missed by the citizens of Wick when it closed, on Pina Cabrelli’s retiral.
Until the 1950s it was known as Iacheri and Cabrelli.
Louie Iachheri and his wife Cesira ( a sister of Joe Cardosi of the Central Cafe in Thurso) came from the Province of Lucca in Tuscany, arriving in Wick via Aberdeen
Louie Iaccheri opened a chip shop in McArthur Street, as well as a cafe on the High Street, known as Camps Now the Camps Bar?)
Around 1920 Andrew Cabrelli moved to Wick from Dundee. He married Louie Iaccheri’s daughter Elsie. They four children, Louis, Mary, Jessie and Irma.
in 1965 Louis married Pina Cardosi from Paisley. They had three children – Andrew , Anthony and Barbara. Pina and Louis expanded the business, running both the Central Cafe and the Rendezvous Restaurant directly above.
Photos by Bill Fernie (Link to photo gallery showing the cafe before it closed in 2003)
The Cabrelli family also had a Restaurant of the same name in Inverness.