This is a blog I've been thinking about writing since last year, but new businesses keep appearing, so, along Queens Road, from Waterworks Road to South Terrace, keeps on moving up, and not to forget this wonderful piece of art that arrived as part of the 2018 Coastal Currents Arts Festival (blog). There still are a significant number of hairdressers and grocers, but they only help to underpin the diversity of the road.
Across the road from Illuminations, which must have had the record for the number of years it held its 'closing down' sale, but now appears closed, and was a soup kitchen over a hundred years ago (blog), is the The Imperial, with it's own microbrewery, Brewing Brothers (website). No soup kitchen this, but a decent real ale and crafty keg pub that brews much of the beer it sells, plus it has its own enormous wood-fired pizza oven for customers to enjoy the product of! They also sell ales from other local breweries, eg last time I was there, two guest ales were from East Sussex brewers Three Legs (website) and Brighton brewers Loud Shirt (website), in addition to their own regular and seasonal beers.
Of course, there are other pubs and bars about, eg the reasonably new micropub Twelve Hundred Postcards (blog) which is having a 'tap takeover' this weekend by the excellent Kent brewers Angels & Demons (website) and, around the corner just off St Andrews Square the, a wee bit older, craft beer off-licence and bar Eel & Bear (blog), which today (Saturday 30th March) has a Pop-Up Record Store (facebook page). And notably the Fountain pub is currently undergoing a makeover, so someone else has noticed how other local businesses are going more upmarket!
Twelve Hundred Postcards also lets you bring in your own food, eg from Oregano Leaf (blog), two doors away to the south, from which I recently brought in a pizza, still costing just £5 (over two years later!) if you collect it yourself, very recently when I arrived too late to go home and cook for myself, nice touch! But, of course, there are a whole host of places, offering various ethnic cuisines you can either eat in or collect takeaways from, Far Eastern, Curries, Fish & Chips, not to forget the crackin' Xochipilli Mexican Street Food (facebook page) at number 68 Queens Road!
Then, across the road, is the excellent Queens Deli & Shop (facebook page), quite frankly a prize of a resource locally, and self-proclaimed Hastings Home of Salt Beef. But it's not just hot Salt Beef sandwiches you can buy and eat here, but all manner of freshly prepared sandwiches for you on many different types of bread, and, not so long ago, I bought a piece of the best ewes milk cheese here I've eaten for many years, a mature version of manchego... and it's not just the excellent food available, they also hold events too, eg a Pasta Workshop very recently. Well worth a visit!
There are many specialist shops too, not to mention shops for curios etc, eg Chef's Ware (website), which has a huge selection of kitchen utensils and appliances, knives, and it provides a knife sharpening service too. I can't even walk by it without devouring the window contents every time I pass when it's closed! There are all other types of shop too, eg the 'lifestyle store' White Rhino (website), two doors away to the north from Twelve Hundred Postcards, all very close together indeed!
The road is also blessed with two proper independent bookshops, ie Book-buster (facebook page), and including the more recently opened Printed Matter Bookshop (website), which specializes in social sciences and academic books, in addition to music and nature books, novels, and many more subjects.
But it doesn't stop there, also many different ethnically specialized markets can be visited, greengrocer, tailors, solicitors offices, cafes and restaurants, materials and sewing, formal clothing outfitters, oh yes, and there's an enormous great big Morrisons supermarket with its adjoining petrol station!
Queens Road is certainly well worth a visit!
