Brighton Bits: a changeover in Kemp Town

Hudson and Bridges cafe and concierge, change over and continuity in Kemp Town.

One of my favourite preoccupations is discovering new places in Brighton on blissfully peaceful and sunny days, such as today.  And that is exactly what happened this morning when I walked past the inviting interior of Hudson and Bridges cafe and concierge. Compelled to find out more I was soon engaged in conversation with Christopher the owner who told me that this will be his and partner Gary’s last week in charge of Hudson and Bridges before they hand over to the new owners, the people behind Taste of Dreams.

“We live in Lewes Crescent, so we were ideally placed to set up a Concierge business for both Lewes Crescent and Sussex Square nearly five years ago.  About six months after that with people coming in and out we decided it would be nice to serve coffee and as we also knew there wasn’t any proper bread up this end of Kemptown, we started selling bread from the Real Patisserie as well. Then over the next two years we completed two expansions and moved the concierge business upstairs as well as taking over the Swan round the corner and turning it from the worst pub in Brighton to a successful restaurant. 

Michael from Taste of Dreams is buying Hudson and Bridges from us and plans to take it to the next level by using their existing kitchen facilities to produce a lot of the food for themselves, whereas we buy everything in.  The advantage of buying in is that we buy from the best in Brighton, including from Cocoa, the French chef Julien Plumart and also brownies and cakes from Taste of Dreams. 
 

The bar and bistro round the corner, the Swan has had an offer as well that we accepted on Friday, leaving my partner Gary and I free to work on new projects.

I am going to be a freelance life coach for the baby boomer generation, they are the biggest demographic and in 2010  accounted for 80% of consumer spending.  It is this cohort of people born over an 18 year period and now reaching retirement age that are likely to have another 30 – 40 useful years left and that are facing fundamental changes in their lives who I am interested in.”

With successful businesses behind them it will be interesting to find what will happen next…