This newly relocated café/restaurant at the bottom of Ventnor Cascade has become the breakfast destination of choice for many locals and visitors alike with its fantastic views of the small Haven, lots of outdoor tables for the days when it’s not raining and big picture windows for the days when it is.
You can sit and watch your children play in the paddling pool and there’s a good three-foot wall between it and the passing road that makes it much safer than in previous years. Although the paddling pool is now drained for the winter, it is still a play area for children, and kids still love to clamber all over the large model of the Isle of Wight that rises from the centre. Under the arches of the Cascade walkway is the pretty little bridge across the stream that drops from the top – an ideal photo opportunity for visitors.
Inside the restaurant is bright and airy with its large picture windows and you can eat from 8am till mid afternoon, with later opening in high season. The interior of the café has a nautical feel, with pictures of the sturdy catamarans produced in the factory and of the pleasure ride boats Ocean Blue/Cheetah Marine operate from the Haven in their boat, you book from behind the counter.
Breakfast is served all day except Sundays in the autumn/winter because Sunday lunches are being added to the menu with pigs in blankets and all the trimmings – served from 1pm till 3.30pm. The café shuts mid afternoon, depending on the weather but never earlier that 2.30pm and on Saturdays and Sundays in the season they are open till 8pm at weekends.
Workers have wifi to use and newspapers are provided for loungers. Now that they’ve gone up in the world, having previously run the Ventnor Bay Café next to the amusement arcade, the boys provide broadsheets as well as the tabloids.
Allen Best and Michael Spink were actually both trained at the Royal Hotel in Ventnor after starting at the IW College, and the food and service is fast and friendly. But you can linger over your breakfast or lunch as long as you like.
Evening meals are available in the summer months and the duo may open up over Christmas in the evenings too. They offer the usual snacks you’d expect from a seafront café along with a specials board that includes pan-fried fish from Blakes Fishery on the New England styled pier opposite. They are fully licensed and serve both filter coffee and the Lavassa range of coffees from the all singing and dancing coffee machine.
