Bosham cafe owners want to create a community feel

The Crate, located in Broadbridge Business Centre, opened in October and has gone from strength to strength.

Alex Clark, one of the co-owners alongside his partner Alice Preistly and father and daughter Luke and Yasmin Hillman, said: “We want to bring the community together, it is something that we feel has been lost recently with many people just getting on with their own thing but we want people to come together here.

“We want it to be the place you may come for food at lunch time or in the evening and bump into three or four friends and then it becomes a bigger social gathering.”

Alex and Luke both have backgrounds in construction and built ‘every mm’ of the cafe which is housed in a container with outside seating space.

Alex said: “Alice is an amazing chef and really creative with food, and we had been talking for a while about doing something together but wasn’t sure what.

“I mentioned to Luke about it and he said he had an in at the site we are at now and had a container we could use and I just said yes let’s do it.”

The rest is history. The cafe provides healthy, grab and go sandwiches, soups and salads, in the evening there is a bar area and pizza oven.

SEE ALSO: Meet the coffee connoisseur at Trading Post Coffee Roasters

Much of its food is sourced locally and its coffee is from Bristol with local roasters as guest coffees.

Alex explains that the cafe has grown organically and the team have adapted to the needs of the customers and local community.

The cafe also holds markets for local businesses that don’t have a physical shop front and held a very successful Christmas market in December.

He said: “In the future we are looking to reach out to biking groups, walking groups and dog walkers.

“We are on a dog walking route right in the countryside. We also have had someone sit at the far end with coffee and food with his binoculars bird watching.”

Other plans for the future include another container as a co-working space.

As well as bringing people together they want to provide a little slice of relaxation to their customers.

“We want people to relax and chill, many people say when they are here they feel like they are on holiday,” he said. “And it is the type of vibe we want to capture.”

For more information, visit thecratecafe.co.uk/

HAVE YOU READ THIS: These are the 16 Michelin recommended restaurants in West Sussex