It’s Friday night and a DJ is playing Ibiza tracks at Coast Cafe. Beyond the open doors, drinkers sip Aperol Spritz at tables on the pebble Sussex beach and fire jugglers ready themselves for sunset. It could be Brighton, but it isn’t. This is 10 miles west, in the UK’s most famous seaside town’s less fashionable neighbour: Worthing. This lively end-of-week scene is just one of the hints that the town’s sleepy retirement image is a thing of the past.
A few metres further along the front, Crabshack serves up excellent seafood on raw-wood benches and an outdoor deck strung with lights. On the other side of the pier, the town’s ugly multistorey car park now sports an al fresco food court, erected during the pandemic on the jutting roof of level one. In deckchairs on artificial grass, groups still gather for seaview sundowners and wood-fired pizza.
