Hello lovely readers, and welcome to our blog! It’s been a while since our last post but have no fear we are revamping this page and intend to update it regularly. To kick it all off we thought we had better start from the beginning, the creation of Billy’s on the Beach!
Questions we’re often asked: How did it all start? Who’s involved? Is it a franchise? To answer the latter no, Billy’s isn’t a franchise, we are a home grown business started up by 5 owners – Clare, Murray, Chris, Vicky (Billy) and Carl. The idea blossomed from Billy, having always been involved in restaurants and the catering field, the dream was to have her own place.
Initially there was a Little Chef being sold off in Billingshurst, the location was perfect and the building was there, ready to be ripped out, revamped and turned into something special. Once the bid for Billingshurst had been placed our plot in Bracklesham came up and one morning after cycling past the little ice cream kiosk that had stood there for so long, Chris and Murray started getting carried away with a dream of what could be…
Thinking there was no way they could possibly get both bids, they decided to put in an offer at the same time, in the end resulting in owning both sites!
Then in the beginning days of July 2013, the fun began, the ice cream kiosk was taken down and in place we installed our beach shack! A Scandinavian build that took two months to complete…no messing around! By September 2013 we were ready for business, we still have our first £5 note pinned to the wall.
With the initial idea for the café being a chilled out quiet surf café with a log burner ready to warm up the brave, cold surfers, the place was built to fit that criteria with a well equipped but small kitchen and a cosy prep room attached, ready to cater to a small crowd.
What hadn’t been anticipated was quite how popular Billy’s was about to be. From the get go there was a buzz about this place, somewhere so necessary for the area, somewhere local you could get delicious fresh food with one of the best views of the Sussex coast.
It didn’t take long to realise Billy’s had so much potential to be something really special, and within the first year big changes were made, we expanded the building creating more room for prepping and baking, we are firm believers in good homemade food and didn’t want to lose that with the growth. We also increased the number of tables and hired more friendly faces to assist!
We are now three years on, and along those three years we’ve made some incredible memories! We’d like to extend the biggest thank you to all of you that have joined us on our journey, and we hope to keep you with us for the years to come! Having waved goodbye to Clare and Murray at the end of the summer, we are looking ahead to a new chapter of the business and hope to have you by our side!
Life really is better at the beach!
