Meet the man behind Hailsham's foodie hotspots

And he has now transferred those skills to successfully running three businesses in Hailsham.

“I had been working in Tunbridge Wells for about three years, commuting from Eastbourne when we had a child,” he explains.

“I just felt that life was too short one minute my daughter was two months then she was two years old, so I decided to look for opportunities in Eastbourne.”

But when a vacant property came up on St Mary’s Walk, Hailsham, Melvyn comments he ‘couldn’t not take it’.

Bucklers was opened in May 2017, by day it is a cafe and by night it is a tapas and gin bar.

“We wanted to offer people something a bit different,” he explains.

“We decided on a shabby, industrial look that no one else was really doing in Hailsham.

“But then we found that people were coming in at lunch asking for take way sandwiches and it was taking too long to get them out, so when The Deli came up we looked into getting the lease.

“When we opened we did a similar interior style so that people linked it up with Bucklers, and it is only four doors up.”

The Deli opened its doors in 2018, it started purely as a deli counter with award-winning fresh bread and local produce and now provides takeaway sandwiches, salads, soups and hot drinks.

“I wasn’t looking for anything else but I always thought if the Chapter 12 bar came up in the High Street then I would take it as it did great food and cocktails,” reveals Melvyn.