With just a few weeks to go until Richard and Claire Simpson manage the café at The Pavilion, with their new enterprise ‘The Coffee Spot’, we thought you would like to get to know them a little better.

This community-based husband and wife team have worked together on many different occasions, in many roles but always complement each other with similar skills.  Many will already know the work that Claire has done in setting up the fantastic Little Learners preschool at Graylingwell Park in 2014 and now based at Keepers Green, a business she has successfully built up over the last ten years.   

Their backgrounds have always been customer and community facing, naturally bringing fun and hard work to all that they do, but coffee and community are their real passions.  They love it and are so excited to be learning more about it as they take on this amazing project- they are looking forward to working with HOST as their supplier.

Richard has a long history and career in hospitality and catering, both in hotels and banqueting so this is far from new territory for him.  The café business is one that they have shared experience of, given that Richard and Claire worked together in a family-owned village store in Boxgrove that had a café in it for many years, involved in all things community.

Some may recognise Richard from his time as manager of Cook in Chichester prior to moving on to the Winchester branch, making a role for himself as a community champion, working with local shop communities and supporting charities.  He looks forward to building equally strong connections and a positive environment around the Coffee Spot once underway.

Being such familiar faces to the community, we hope that they will be warmly welcomed by the whole community, and we are very excited to see the fantastic new food and drink offer they will bring to this beautiful space.  Keep a look out for opening dates for The Coffee Spot in August, and information on the new look place-to-be on the park.