Sussex village restaurant owner thanks customers following 23rd anniversary

The current owners of The Sundial in Gardner Street, Herstmonceux, reached the milestone on August 14 after taking over the site back in 2000.

Vincent Rongier, who owns the French restaurant with his wife Mary, said: “During Covid we had such absolutely fantastic customers and they have all supported us. When there was lockdown we already organised outside catering and a lot of customers in the local area were using it, so some customers were coming to pick it up and my wife and my daughter were driving around the countryside to make the deliveries. We never stopped from day one.

“We have been supported by all the customers really beautifully.

“We have been through all the ups and downs. It was really, really hard, no doubt, but generally it has been really good.”

He added: “I want to say a big thank you [to our customers] because without them we wouldn’t be here. It is as simple as that.”

Mr Rongier, who explained that the site was also a French-orientated restaurant before he took over, said the restaurant has regular customers from America, Canada, Paris and London.

He added: “We want all clientele, that is important to us. We have been very fortunate and some customers have been coming for years, and years, and years and some people have been coming since day one when we were here.”

Mr Rongier, who is the restaurant’s second owner in 50 years, explained that the business struggled to recruit staff following lockdown and said he thinks this was due to a combination of the pandemic and Brexit.

He added: “It has been very, very tough since opening after Covid because the staff decided not to come back so you had to find new staff.”

Looking forward the owner said he wants to continue to focus on using local produce while sticking to his ‘old fashioned’ ways.

Mr Rongier said: “People will call me old fashioned but I prefer to be old fashioned than contemporary.”