HEIST.
At Heist, the food market collective in St Leonards-on-Sea, there are so many mouth-watering options to try. We sat down with co-owner Kate O’Norum to find out how it all came together.
Left to Right: Ben, Kate and Gillie.
What is your background, and what led you to set up this place?
Kate. Ben and I were up in London and we met through food and drink. Ben was doing food and drink journalism and running street food markets, I worked in wine bars and trained to be a journalist. I did local news and a few lifestyle features, food and drink. Then I went into news producing for a while. That’s what we were doing before we moved down to Hastings. We both wanted to open a wine bar but we couldn’t afford to do that in London. Nearly five years ago, we came down on the train and fell in love with the area, and it quickly became home.
The produce around here is fantastic from a food and drink perspective. Obviously, we’ve got amazing fresh fish, but also the farming around here is fantastic for local meats and vegetables - and there’s a real wine scene as well.
We spent about 18 months coming down, putting offers in on various things that didn’t work out, until we found a place at the top of Kings Road, where we opened our first restaurant Farmyard. There wasn’t nearly as much going on in St Leonards as there is now, but it had a good vibe and we were busy. At the beginning it was just the two of us, Ben was in the kitchen and I was in front of house.
We opened our second restaurant, Boatyard, a couple of years later. A regular customer had mentioned that they were looking for somebody to take on the café at the Hastings Contemporary gallery so we explored the option and eventually went for it. It was early 2020 by then, so we had just got up and running with our new seafood menu when COVID-19 came and obviously we had to close. We had invested a lot of money into the set-up, so we did deliveries and supper clubs from Farmyard, which kept us ticking over just a little - but it was hard. When the gallery finally reopened, many of their pre-pandemic plans had changed and it became clear that it wasn’t the best of fits for us so we chose to move out, leaving Boatyard looking for a home.
By that time, the initial plans for Heist were already in motion. Our good friend Gillie, who we initially met as a customer, helped us out a lot during these supper clubs over lockdown and we talked about this idea together. Gillie had lived up in Altrincham near Manchester where there was Altrincham Market. It was one of the original street food set-ups and helped transform quite a deprived area into a thriving one. Now you have this set up all over London and elsewhere, but nothing anywhere near here. So the three of us, over a fair few bottles of wine, started talking about it, then looking into sites and ways to make it happen.
One of the big appeals of it was bringing businesses together, especially after the tough times we’d all had through the lockdowns. We felt like people needed something like Heist, where you could either have a second site or your first site; it was minimal startup costs because you are just renting a unit. So you didn’t need loads of investment, but it was an opportunity to expand or do something on your own. So before we knew it, we were looking at various sites; the three of us took on a lease and turned it into Heist.
We were part of our local business community and knew other companies, including the guys at The Three Legs Brewery, we’ve sold their beer for a long time. They in turn knew the guys at Coldblow Coffee who roast their own amazing coffee not far away. Kasia, who has the Wild Dogz stall worked front of house at Farmyard for a while, running Wild Dogz at outdoor markets at the same time. So it was great that she wanted to take the plunge and have her first solid site at Heist, and she is doing amazingly well.
Putting together the street food vendors, we interviewed them and tasted all the food, so we knew we were happy with the quality of everything under one roof. Every business here runs as its own independent company. We don’t interfere with what they do, other than we want everyone to use quality ingredients.
I think for all the businesses here, although we all work individually, we are a real collective. There is a lot of talent in this area and many fantastic food and drink operators, but everything has been affected for various reasons over the last couple of years. If we were set up in a separate building, we wouldn’t get this close interaction with others or the opportunity to learn from somebody else. So what I love about being in this work environment is the support. If something goes wrong, all these people here can jump in and offer help or help and guidance - whether it’s a piece of advice, or some equipment to borrow.
Left - Home Ground Kitchen / Right - Boatyard
“Each little piece of the puzzle is specialised, and it is from people who love and care about produce and their product. I think that’s why it works so well.”
We want it to have that collective communal feel for our guests too. At Heist, you can take away or sit in as a family or with a group of friends. Many people don’t want to spend loads of money and not everyone wants to go into a restaurant environment. So it caters for everyone’s needs. Our vision was that you could come here with a group, sit together, and everyone could have what they want from this mix of businesses. It is more fluid and more accessible in terms of value. It’s not as expensive because it is street food, and it encourages people to try new things - but it’s still interesting and still really good quality.
Left - Wild Dogz / Right - Arigato Japanese Cuisine.
Are there separate menus for Boatyard & Farmyard?
Kate. Yes, completely. Roughly speaking, Farmyard is more meat and plant-based. There are fish options, but there’s less seafood. Boatyard is mainly seafood and fish, with some plant-based but not much meat. What both restaurants have in common is they serve local produce and have big lists of natural wine, but Farmyard is more salt marsh lamb and rib-eye steak plus vegan plant-based options and Boatyard is very much a market fish, catch of the day set-up.
Initially, Ben did the kitchen, and I was the front house. I worked in wine before I went full-time into journalism. And before that, I’d been working in restaurants since I was 14. My first job was as a kitchen porter, and I’ve done every role available apart from being a chef. Ben previously worked in the street food side of the industry, but not in a restaurant. And Gillie’s background was events. So in terms of Heist, we do it all together; it’s a collaborative team effort. The Heist wine bar, Loire De Da, is also run by us. Ben and I initially chose most of the wine list, but Gillie has become very involved in that as well.
How did you create the decor?
Kate. The building had been an HSBC Bank until 2015, and then it was derelict until we set up. We kept the original wood panelling around the bank manager’s office, and we still have the walk-in safe downstairs, which we have plans for.
A lot of the design came from our friend Jenna Jardine, who is a fantastic artist. She designs all sorts of weird and exciting things. So she came to stay for the summer and did the whole thing. Jenna built a lot of it by hand and we chipped in. The fact that she managed to fit nine businesses into this building and still have it look good is very impressive! We wanted the building to feel like one place when you walked in, but also that every area was individual. A kind of industrial warehouse space that felt like we had just taken over a bank - hence the name Heist.
As for the outside, the local organisation Love Hastings had a budget to spend on street art and they approached us and asked would we be up for doing something on the front of our building. We were like a hundred percent. The guys that designed it also painted it, all overseen by our friend Charlie Nelson from local signwriting business Fundi Signs. The mural in the yard was designed and painted by Claire from the lovely shop Paisley & Friends, a few doors down from Farmyard on Kings Road, while the many brilliant plants and flowers were designed and installed by Suzanne from Made + Merchant also on that road - what she doesn’t know about plants isn’t worth knowing!
The Clam at HEIST.
Is it too early to start making plans for the future of Heist?
Kate. The plans never stop! We have ideas for the walk-in safe in the basement, but that is currently a work in progress. And we’re planning soon to do a produce market weekly too, so people can come to get fish, vegetables and all those kinds of things. Do their shopping for the weekends and have a coffee at the same time or stop and have a beer. We’re also working on local workshops as well. So when it is quieter on weekdays, we have people interested in teaching classes, taking up just a table or two which adds to the community feel and provides a space for local creatives to do these things. We’ve also just started our Sunday Brunch Club, with DJs playing every Sunday and all the stalls doing brunch dishes, brunch cocktails and a whole brunch menu from Boatyard, including bottomless brunches with all-you-can-drink fizz and dishes like Brown Shrimp Rosti, Surf & Turf and Steak & Eggs.
There’ll be lots more to come that we don’t know about yet, too. You plan to some extent; you have a vision for what you’re doing, and you need an idea that it can work financially. But beyond that, you have to open the doors. Straight away on the first day, you start to work those small things out. We need a sign there; you wait and see what people do. People can’t find that, so we need to change it or that’s not working, and you just alter things as you go, and we are not finished.
“There is a real mix of people who’ve grown up around here who are working with or for people mainly running independent small businesses, working with local producers who have been here their whole lives.”
An excellent thing that’s come out of our shared space is collaboration. We match wines to street food dishes and all come together for food events like Valentine’s or a Ukraine fundraiser. A great example of this collaborative approach is between Coldblow and Three Legs - they made a coffee stout together. They talked about it here at Heist over a few drinks, and then they all went down to the roastery and roasted the beans together before going to the brewery and making it together - they designed it and now sell it here at Heist. We’ve got more things in the pipeline, but we’ll also see where it takes us, and that’s the true spirit of Heist.
HEIST. 22-26 Norman Road, St. Leonards-On-Sea, TN37 6NH
heistmarket.com
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