Heading down to Littlehampton on the beautiful English south coast, you might be surprised to find a little jewel on the edge of the beach called East Beach Café, which is not only an architectural delight but also provides superb locally-roasted coffee and fantastic locally-sourced seasonal fresh food (supporting local businesses and the local economy).

 

 

The café has won several awards for architecture, business (Sussex New Business of the Year 2008-2009) and is also listed as one of the UK’s top 30 seaside restaurants. The latest honour is a ‘Global Gourmet’ award from British Airways in-flight magazine. The café has been so successful that the West Beach Café was recently opened to serve gourmet fish and chips and coffee to visitors and locals, and now there are cafés on both sides of the River Arun estuary.

 

 

The cafés are run by Sophie Murray in conjunction with her mother Jane, who bought a holiday apartment in Littlehampton several years ago little realising the affect this would have on her life! Bestcuppa asked Sophie how it all started, “My mother bought a holiday flat in Littlehampton for use at weekends and holidays and we both fell in love with the area… there was a beach kiosk in the South Terrace conservation area near my mother’s flat that had received planning permission to be replaced by a 100-seat burger bar and we thought that this would ruin the area as the architecture was typically utilitarian … in the end we bought the whole business as well as the existing building and ran it ourselves for a season to see if it was feasible”.

 

 

What happened next was the stuff dreams are made of. “We commissioned new designs with Thomas Heatherwick’s studio and put in plans for a new café … the Council were very supportive and excited about the high quality of the architecture and so we had a lot of help during the planning process … There was an awful lot of press coverage when we opened in June 2007 because of the architecture and we have been really, really busy ever since – so much so that we now have 30 staff across the two sites in the high season”.

 

 

The monocoque building is made of layers of contoured weathered steel, which represents a worn driftwood or seashell shape on the shore. The front of the building, facing the sea, can be opened by virtue of large windows that are protected by roller shutters after closing. The whole building is surrounded by decking that can also support customer tables outside in summer and there is a children’s playground behind it.

The architecture makes a definite visual statement and captures the imagination evoking images of the Great Pink Sea Snail from Dr Dolittle (1967). “The café is still very busy two years after opening and is patronised very much by the locals for coffee and cake but also by visitors who are pleasantly surprised to find us along the seafront”.

 

 

The popularity of the new café is a combination of the quirky architecture (the ‘Guggenheim’ effect), the location, and the excellent food and drink (very reasonably priced). Sophie is very particular about the coffee served at the East Beach and has a special blend that is roasted and supplied by Coffee Compass, also based in Littlehampton (delivered everyday by bicycle). The blend contains Sumatran, Brazilian and Ethiopian beans and is sourced from a variety of growers with the emphasis being on quality. If you like the coffee at the East Beach then bags of beans and ground are available to buy and take home so that it can be enjoyed at your leisure. As Sophie says: “I would go anywhere for a good cup of coffee and I knew that the coffee we served at East Beach had to be special”. Asked about plans for the future Sophie smiled and replied “I think as we have just opened the new West Beach Café we now need to consolidate, but who knows in the future … if there is a suitable site we could build another establishment.”

 

As a parting comment Sophie added “Littlehampton is a very special place. My Mum and I love it.”