Over the course of 16 years, Red Roaster has become a Brighton institution. It was one of the first specialty coffee houses in the country and is Brighton's oldest roastery.
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In 2016 we took over the business, with a view to bringing Red Roaster back to the forefront of people's minds whilst retaining the connection to the community. At the same time we wanted to give it a new lease of life and make it feel as though you hadn't stepped back in time.
Although we have acquired the site and business, we have had to delay a portion of our project.
We are looking to raise funds to help us with Phase 2: The Garden and Roastery
Behind Red Roaster we have a great space and are also looking to secure the garden space next door, that runs behind the retail units on St James's Street.
Our vision for the garden is to create a focal point at the back of Red Roaster with an area that merges indoors and outdoors. An indoor garden/outdoor restaurant. All contained within a beautiful atrium/conservatory.
By purchasing the additional garden space, it will enable us to create an unprecedented outdoor area within the city. At one end will be the restaurant area, leading into a kitchen garden. This will be used to add interest to the dinner offer at Pike & Pine. We would also look to put a preparation kitchen in the space, which would serve the 'secret garden' bar and dining area. We want to create a magical outdoor space in the heart of Kemptown.
The funds won't cover the whole cost of the project but will enable us to start the process of acquiring and purchasing the additional garden space and starting work in our existing garden.
Secondly, there is our Roastery, which is located 1 mile away from the cafe, further up the road in Kemptown. Much like the cafe, it is in need of modernisation and refurbishment. This has come to light recently as we are having to turn away possible customers due to having reached our limits with what we are able to supply due to equipment needs and storage space solutions.
We would look to use some of the funds to invest in an automated bagging machine. This will allow us to speed up the whole process of bagging our coffee. We currently roast between 150-200kg of coffee per week, which is a lot of coffee to bag.
With the time saved by not bagging, we are able to roast closer to our capacity and look to distribute our coffee further a field.
We are also looking to redevelop our roastery space. We want to, not only create a more usable space for our roastery operation, but we want to create an environment where people can come to our roastery and spend time with us. Learning about the coffee in a comfortable place.
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Risks and challenges
With the first phase of our build project, we've encountered all sorts of issues. Consequently, this has had an impact on our reopening time and elements of the project, like the garden.
Although this won't affect our ability to open, the garden is a large part of the reinvention of Red Roaster.
Our greatest risk is not achieving our target and not being able to complete the vision we set out with. It reduces our ability to offer our product to the number of people we budgeted for, meaning that the work so far, may all be in vein.
The amount we are looking to raise may not be enough for us to complete the project on it's own. This kickstarter project is to help us with the legal side of the work we need to do for the garden project and will give us a good head start in funding the rest of the project
