The North Laine of Brighton is teeming with bijou coffee shops designed to make you feel like the coffee you’re drinking has been specifically crafted in a laboratory just for you to drink it. Aged like a fine wine, and brought to you on a gilded saucer.
Crunch and Co is a glorious outlier to this new, refined way of enjoying a simple beverage and a toastie sandwich. After all, no matter how you dress it up, lunch is a no-nonsense affair, with one goal in mind, and that is to satiate your stomach and imbue your soul with a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Mark opened Crunch and Co in Brighton in 2019, and much like his sarnies and soup, his idea was simple: he wanted to start a business and meet people. Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic hit and like so many other small businesses he was forced to shut his shop. But as of November 2023, Crunch and Co is not only back in business, it’s positively thriving. So much so, that Mark hopes to open another branch of his soup and toastie café elsewhere in time.
The food is simple at its finest. You order a sandwich and a soup of your choice and you eat it. It’s as simple as that. The sandwiches are toasted to perfection with a variety of fillings on offer, with oozing melted cheese and hot soup adding company to the crunch of the toasted bread. As for the bread, you’re offered a simple choice: white, brown, or sourdough.
With the weather as cold and wet as it is, there’s something brilliantly unfussy about a no-nonsense café like Crunch and Co., which lets the food do the talking and leaves the rest to you. Here’s to small businesses doing simple right.
Address: 7 Church Street, Brighton, BN1 1UJ
Website: https://crunchandco.co.uk/
