Three sisters are at the helm of the family-run Marshall’s Farm Shop and Kitchen, just outside Aberdeen.
Sisters Christine Mackintosh, Julie Stuart and Shona Marshall each have their own speciality in the business.
Christine looks after the shop, Julie the restaurant and Shona the butchery.
Kenny and Moira Marshall, alongside their three daughters, set up the restaurant just off the A96 in 2021.
Since then, the family have opened their own drive-thru, started slow-cooking brisket, and gotten to know plenty of regulars.
“We have a really good team of waitresses who make customers feel welcome,” says Julie.
“There are some places you go now where you don’t get much chat with the staff.
“So we try to make sure we take our time with customers and speak to them.
“It’s great to see when it’s so buzzing at the weekend.
“It’s nice that customers are coming here and enjoying the experience that we’ve created, all of us together.”
Care and attention for customers pays off
The response from customers speaks for itself at Marshall’s near Kintore.
“Our team get to know our regular customers really well,” Julie adds, “they know some of their orders.
“Some of them come in every day, other regulars are there every two to three days.
“I really like when I get to seat customers myself. Then I’m the first port of call when a customer comes in.
“They will say: ‘Oh, I was just here yesterday.’
“And it does feel really nice that they’ve chosen to come back.
“And that’s when you realise you must be doing a reasonable job.”
What food is on offer at Marshall’s Farm Shop and Kitchen?
The lunch menu at Marshall’s Farm Shop and Kitchen includes a range of burgers, and hearty dishes like macaroni and cheese, mince and tatties, and North Sea haddock.
The restaurant is quite unique in that the majority of the food on the menu comes from their own farm.
That means the beef burgers, sirloin steak, sausages, pulled pork and more, are made using meat from their butchery, with the animals born and reared within five miles of the farm shop.
“I think the most enjoyment we get is looking at what we get from the butchery, and trying to be imaginative with it,” says Julie.
“We make specials out of the meat every week.
“We get our heads together and try to come up with different ideas, depending on what’s available and seasonality.”
‘That’s where we’re different’
“Pretty much everything on our roast dinner is from our own farm,” she adds.
“Our meat is, the tatties and the vegetables are.
“We make our own skirlie and the Yorkshire puddings are made using our own eggs.
“That’s where we’re different.
“But it does take a lot of time and effort.”
Their drive-thru, which opened in February 2023, also serves burgers made with their own beef.
“It creates so many efficiencies as well,” adds Julie.
“So if we’re having a massive burger day, we can just go out to the butchery and say can we get forty more burgers – as in, in the next 15 minutes.
“We keep anything that’s frozen to an absolute minimum.”
In terms of sweet treats, their seasonal strawberry tarts are especially popular, as are their empire biscuits and cakes from their counter. The team at Marshall’s Farm Shop freshly bake these.
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