Fox & Badger Coffee House opens in Bexhill, East Sussex

Co-owner of the coffee house Sam McAuley explains more.

Transcript

00:00How long has Foxton Badger Coffee House been open for?

00:02Foxton Badger Coffee House has now been open for three to four weeks.

00:07Before the new year we were Wickham Bistro and when I say we I mean me and my family.

00:13So my mum and dad, Sean and Sharon, and with my sister Alice and my brother Will before he

00:20moved to Spain. We used to run Wickham Bistro together but then towards the end of the year

00:27my mum and dad fancied a bit of a change and around about the same time me and a friend of

00:32mine Milo really liked the idea of running a coffee shop together. So we decided to sort of

00:38take over the business, we renamed, we rebranded, we repainted all the walls, got new signage,

00:47painted the front of the shop, moved some stuff around and installed this thing above the counter

00:56because obviously when you come into a coffee shop you expect the menu to be sort of like

01:00above the person making the coffee. So we just put a big old blackboard up there to

01:06put our menu up there and yeah it's only been three weeks but we've hit the ground running.

01:13The first week I couldn't believe how busy it was and we're already hiring people and

01:17trying to keep up with everything and it feels like I'm ordering more cinnamon buns every other

01:24day because they keep running out and they're very popular. When we first opened we were trying

01:29to do cocktails on a Friday night, unfortunately we have decided to stop doing that but on the

01:34flip side of that we're going to extend our kitchen opening hours. So at the moment right now

01:40we just do a simple sandwich menu, I say simple sorry, a a wonderful sandwich menu between 11

01:46and 2 but we're going to extend that from 10 till 2 and we're going to add some more sort of

01:52breakfasty items alongside the menu and then in the future we'll eventually open on Saturdays.

02:00It's a bit of an odd day to be closed for a coffee shop but it's worked out quite well

02:05because I think there's so many other places open on a Saturday and a lot of places are closed on

02:10Sundays and Mondays and they're two of the days we're open. One of our busiest days has been

02:15Mondays and I think it's because people still want to go out and have a coffee on a Monday

02:20and we're one of the only places open. It's been wonderful to host all kinds of people,

02:26we chose the name Coffee House because in the olden times before coffee houses

02:33were really like a melting pot where people of all levels of wealth would meet and

02:40drink coffee and discuss ideas and I really liked that idea and I've seen it here,

02:46we get sort of like the older ladies in for tea and we also get the younger crowd in for

02:50their matcha lattes and it's really fun to see a whole mix of people coming here

02:57and just being able to host that kind of thing.