Worthing Pier closure: New temporary home for fine-dining restaurant

Worthing Pier has been temporarily closed for safety reasons after part of the structure suffered storm damage for the ‘first time in more than 25 years’.

Perch on the Pier has been adversely affected by the closure – as well as Johnny Stanford’s Tern Restaurant.

Earlier this week, Johnny, the head chef, wrote on social media, calling for the community’s help to find the eatery a new temporary location.

Today (Saturday, October 12), he revealed that the restaurant has now found a place.

He said: “As I know many of you will be already aware, we have been rendered unable to access Worthing pier since Wednesday due to a complete emergency closure by the Worthing and Adur council.

“On Wednesday night we were plunged into a disaster of a situation, with no working notice and after repeated requests have still been refused even limited controlled access to our space to get hold of any of our equipment, crockery, produce or prep.

“There was an outpouring of amazing support for us via social media which has really bolstered us at an incredibly difficult time. But translating this into something tangible for our guests has still been a huge challenge.

“We have scrambled to find a suitable place to temporarily relocate to, and although we are delighted to say that we have been successful in this, upon a realistic appraisal of our situation, we have made the very difficult decision to not open for tonight, Saturday, October 12.

“It’s absolutely crucial to us that wherever we find ourselves we can continue to deliver the same level of excellence and dedication to you, our guests in terms of both food and service as well as venue. Although this has been a gut wrenching decision to make, we can’t with a clear conscience put our guests or our team in this position. We are so proud of everything we have achieved over the last 15 months at Tern, and it’s important that we move through the temporary glitch with the same vision and clarity.

“We have secured a fantastic venue in which to pop up in for the next week until we can go home. We’re delighted to announce that for the week of October 16 to October 20 we will be operating from the stunningly beautiful East Beach Cafe in Littlehampton.

“The venue itself is utterly unique and a huge statement, an iconic and award-winning architectural masterpiece, designed by none other than the incredible Thomas Heatherwick. Although it’s is wildly different to our space at the pier, it is equally breath-taking, with uninterrupted sea views (and the bonus of very convenient parking).

“Although the decision to move slightly further up the road (7.1 miles to be precise) may come as a surprise to some, and possibly controversial to others, we trust that when you see this remarkable venue, you will understand exactly why this is the right decision for us at this time.

“There will be a slight adjustment to our hours of operation for this week only. We will be open for five dinner services only, Wednesday to Sunday, October 16 to 20 inclusive of a wine producer series night with Albourne estate on Thursday, October 17.

“We have opened up bookings from 7pm starting Wednesday, October 16 for anyone who would like to join us for an incredible experience at our new temporary home. Although we were forced into this position, we are confident that this will be a remarkable collaboration and can’t wait to share it with you all. Full credit to both teams at Tern and east beach for moving so quickly to facilitate this remarkable thing.

“We know that there will be a lot of questions about this from many different perspectives. Rest assured that we are doing our best to answer them all. Please message or email us with any of your queries, but bear in mind that we are working as fast as we can to get back to everyone and there’s a lot of messages for a very small team.

“Booking is now available for the coming week, but for this week only all bookings must be directed via email at [email protected].

“All reservations made at the pop up East Beach site will be treated to a complimentary glass of bubbles on arrival as our way of saying thank you for trusting and supporting us through this seriously challenging time.

“Please can we ask one more thing. Our community came to the rescue on Thursday with the support for our predicament we received via social media. We really need to ask the same of you now. Please help us spread the word. Comment on our social media, please like, save, and share our posts far and wide. Our position is still tenuous and we need to get the word out as far and as fast as possible to make this work.”