STREET DINER: A local hub where the world meets every Friday
- Toluwalope Omoyeni
- Jul 17, 2015
- 2 min read
Two years on and Brighthelm Garden, an almost covert, yet cosy space on Queens Road is the rendezvous for local traders from all parts of Sussex. This is where they pitch their attractive, delicious meals to the frequent and loyal visitors without any need to bother about competition.
Every Friday, most visitors have to make difficult decisions on what to try. There’s so much fresh variety to choose from and all the platters appeal to the sensory organs. For the traders and their customers, no two Fridays are alike.
Some of the visitors of Street Diner have been popping in every Friday since its inception but new people are always welcome and the possibilities of their loyalty are usually very high.
The creators of Street Diner, Kate O'Sullivan and Christina Angus, had been friends for a while but met again at a local market on the outskirts of Brighton where they finally decided to bring their mutual interest to life.
In an interview with Brighton Foodstyle, the duo expressed their reasons for choosing to start this market in Brighton: ‘You need to be somewhere where there is a sense of community and openness to world food and street food offering. We could not have done this anywhere else.’
The diversity in Brighton’s dining and restaurant industry provides a pedestal for open food markets such as Street Diner to operate on. Many of these traders only enjoyed an occasional showcase of their culinary excellence in festivals held in the area but Street Diner has given them an opportunity for weekly trade.
Manu and his sister, Elbira serve home-made Spanish meals at the market and they joined in only three weeks ago. This amounts to two things: the traders are increasing as the weeks go by which means there is a corresponding rise in available varieties. Both of them had set up their stall in other parts of Sussex prior to their arrival in Brighton; but business was not the same in the other places.
Manu said: ‘We once took our business to Eastbourne but the turnout was not so great. Selling in Brighton is fantastic because there are so many people from different cultures who always want to try our food.’ They are satisfied with how things have turned out for them at Street Diner and they hope to keep coming.
Fiona Morgan works few buildings away from Brighthelm Garden and she treats herself to lunch at Street Diner every weekend. She said: 'I have never had the same type of meal twice since i started coming here. There's so much to choose from'.
