Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate

Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate, also known as Bettys and Taylors Group Limited, is a family company based in Yorkshire, England. The company's brands are Bettys (with no apostrophe), Taylors of Harrogate (also with no possessive apostrophe), and Yorkshire Tea. Bettys Café Tea Rooms are traditional tea rooms serving traditional meals with influences from both Switzerland and Yorkshire. Taylors of Harrogate was a family tea and coffee merchant company, founded in 1886, which blended Yorkshire Tea and Taylors of Harrogate Coffee; the owners of Bettys acquired Taylors in 1962. The chairman of the company is Clare Morrow, a former journalist. Yorkshire Tea was introduced by Charles Edward Taylor and his brother in 1883, when they created their company CE Taylor & Co., whose name was later shortened to Taylor's. The brothers later opened "Tea Kiosks" in the Yorkshire towns of Harrogate and Ilkley, and in 1962, local tea room competitor Betty's took over Taylor's, renamed it Taylors of Harrogate and formed Bettys and Taylors Group, which is still owned by the family of Fredrick Belmont, who founded Betty's Tea Rooms. The group now uses the Bettys and Taylors brands in a number of industries, including Yorkshire Tea and Taylors Coffee Merchants under the Taylors of Harrogate name, and Bettys Tea Rooms, Bettys Cookery School and Bettys Confectionery under the Bettys brand. In 2007 Bettys and Taylors was 72nd in a list of "the 100 best companies to work for" compiled by The Sunday Times. The first Bettys tea room was opened on Cambridge Crescent in Harrogate, West Riding of Yorkshire, by Frederick Belmont, a Swiss confectioner, in July 1919. The Harrogate tea rooms moved to their current position on Parliament Street in 1976. Belmont arrived in England at King's Cross railway station and boarded a train to Bradford as much through luck as judgement, for he spoke very limited English and could not recall the address (or even the city) to which he was supposed to be heading.