01/09/2026
Well… that’s a wrap on Chalk. ☕️❤️
A huge thank you to everyone who came out today to wish us well. It reminded us that, despite the occasional impression otherwise, the overwhelming majority of Alfriston has been bloody brilliant to us.
We opened a tiny coffee shop thinking our biggest challenges would be making great coffee, paying the bills and remembering who wanted oat milk.
How spectacularly naïve. 😂
We survived CityFibre digging up the road directly outside the shop. Apparently nowhere else in East Sussex would do.
Yet you navigated the trenches and kept coming. ❤️
Then there was…
THE SIGN.
This was, in fact, a two-part saga.
First came the vandalism and scandal involving our sign at the local hotel. After I called it out publicly, I was subjected to repeated phone calls from the AEG commander, along with abusive texts.
Nothing says quiet rural village life quite like dealing with an angry phone campaign over a coffee-shop sign. 😂
Then came the second sign.
A tiny sign in the village square.
You’d have thought we’d erected a 40-foot illuminated Starbucks logo on the Clergy House.
It lasted a day.
Then it was removed.
We put it back.
It disappeared again.
After repeatedly replacing it, the whole thing became less a planning issue and more an interactive village installation.
Then someone connected to a nearby antique establishment decided what the situation really needed was MORE PEOPLE HAVING AN ARGUMENT ABOUT A TINY SIGN.
😂
Then came…
THE HOSEPIPE.
Our little hose supplied the hand-wash basin.
Apparently this posed a grave danger to the suitcases of guests staying at a neighbouring holiday property.
Forget potholes. Forget flooding.
LUGGAGE WAS AT RISK.
Thankfully, Alfriston’s Samsonites survived. 🧳❤️
The beautiful ending?
We understand the new owners are preparing to spend somewhere approaching £10,000 installing proper water and drainage into the Bats Wing.
Why?
🥁🥁🥁
Because…
IT’S GOING TO BE A COFFEE SHOP AGAIN.
😂☕️
You genuinely couldn’t write it.
Then there was the chapter that wasn’t particularly funny.
We dismissed a member of staff. That should have been the end of it. Instead, the fallout became considerably larger than a disagreement about somebody’s job.
We were invited to the village fete, then effectively uninvited following objections connected to the same situation.
Even our little sign lasted longer. 😂
What saddened us most was seeing sexuality and gender identity dragged into something which, from our perspective, had absolutely nothing to do with either.
For clarity, we’ve never cared whether somebody is gay, straight, bi, trans, non-binary or identifies as a particularly complicated coffee order.
Be whoever you want.
Love whoever you want.
We’ll make you a coffee.
What we object to is identity being used as am******on in an unrelated personal dispute, or people being portrayed as prejudiced simply because an employment relationship ended badly. 🏳️🌈
Somehow our tiny coffee shop managed to encounter:
CityFibre trenches.
Sign vandalism and scandal.
The Great Village Square Sign War.
Repeated calls from the AEG commander.
The Fete That We Nearly Attended.
Pride politics.
Airbnb Suitcasegate.
A puddle patrol.
And one exceptionally controversial hosepipe.
All from selling coffee in a building roughly the size of a garden shed.
😂😂😂
But here’s the important bit.
YOU KEPT COMING.
You came when the road was dug up, when it rained and when village politics became completely bonkers.
And today, so many of you came simply to give us a hug, say goodbye and wish us well.
That’s what we’ll remember: not the handful of people who seemed determined to turn running a coffee shop into an episode of Midsomer Murders, but the hundreds who supported us.
So Chalk closes with brilliant memories, wonderful friends, ridiculous stories and the satisfaction of knowing that, after all the drama surrounding our little coffee shop, the grand plan for the Bats Wing is apparently…
to put a coffee shop in it.
😂☕️👏
We genuinely wish the new owners every success.
Thank you to everyone who supported Chalk.
It’s been emotional.
It’s been hilarious.
And above all…
it’s been VERY Alfriston. ❤️☕️
