A fully functioning café that blends art with the everyday, Hunt & Darton Cafe – Open Surgery is where spontaneity and performance meet great food and drink.
More than just a café, Hunt & Darton is a social and artistic hub for the groundbreaking new SICK! festival, which explores the medical, mental and social challenges of life and death and how we survive them (or don’t).
Hunt & Darton Cafe encourages playful participation and meaningful social encounters through its alternative service, from its hosts Hunt & Darton in their iconic fruit or veggie attire, comic interaction through their ‘set menu’ performances, guest waiters and themed days such as You-Do-It or Health & Safety day. The Cafe menu is varied, but includes such delights as Coco Pops, Wagon Wheels, Tunnock’s Tea Cakes, Wotsits and other refreshments from one’s childhood.
We Are Pop Up caught up with Jenny Hunt and Holly Darton for some fun times and fizz at the launch of their latest pop up in Brighton. Replete in pineapple dresses and headgear, Hunt & Darton took the time to meet with cafe goers, serve up some fizz and cake, showcase one of their hit poems entitled ‘Victory’, and tell us about their pop up experiences.
Why pop up?
We love the temporality of pop ups. We open for 4 weeks which we find is long enough to build interest and a cafe community and short enough for us to be able to host in it every day! The work is designed for empty shops so pop up makes sense to us. It is also important for us to stay on the move to reach and engage with a greater range of people.
Was there anything unexpected or particularly challenging about getting this off the ground?
Not hugely. Between us we already had catering/events and general managing experience coined with a art practice spanning 10 years. Working with empty shop schemes such as changing spaces in Cambridge and We Are Pop Up has been brilliant as well as local councils whom we have found to be supportive and the recent incentive set up to entice landlords by offering 3 weeks rate relief invaluable. We have also always partnered with a local arts centre for all the cafés which has provided further infrastructure.
What’s the nicest/weirdest/most helpful thing a customer has said so far?
“Can you stay for ever?” We also had a lovely group of people in Cambridge who came to the cafe for a friends wake. They said that they knew she (the newly widowed) would be okay, after she insisted taking part in the Wagon Wheel flip challenge!
Any thoughts about what happens after this pop up yet?
Yes – we are currently on a 2 year strategic tour funding by Arts Council England, which sees the cafe travel to 7 different locations, setting up for a month at a time. Tour dates include Cambridge City centre in May, Colchester in October, Folkestone in February and Manchester next March.
Hunt & Darton is occupying one of the vacant units in Brighton Square, which has been earmarked by the Council as a pop up hot spot. Creative projects wishing to pop up can apply for space through We Are Pop Up. The landlord is fully on board with the initiative and has been delighted at the impact Hunt & Darton is already having on Brighton Square:
“Hunt & Darton is a fantastic ambassador for the pop-up movement, which continues to gain momentum and exposure both on the local scene and nationally. Typically, as a landlord, we anticipate void periods from time to time and working with pop-up initiatives has enabled us to both mitigate empty rates exposure and to improve the retail environment for our existing tenants in neighbouring premises. As such, we’re proud to house Hunt & Darton Café in Brighton Square and look forward to welcoming further initiatives this summer.” Ed Allison-Wright, Centurion Group
So hurry up and head on down to Hunt & Darton for food, drink and live art. And remember, you’re never too old for Coco Pops!
Want to launch your own pop-up cafe, artistic hub of Wagon Wheel restaurant? Discover more spaces on our website here.
You must log in to post a comment.