About Surfside Cafes
MEET NIGEL CALCUTT
I am originally from Newquay in Cornwall but have made my home and raised my family in Swansea. I first came to Swansea at the age of 18 to attend Swansea University - mainly because there was good surf here!! and loved the area. After finishing my degree I travelled around the world surfing but decided that Swansea was a great place to live - even better than Cornwall!
I bought my first cafe, Langland Surfside, from Phil and Di who are lovely people. At first, my main goal was to have a business which could be flexible so I could go surf whenever I wanted but I soon realised that I loved running a cafe! After this realisation my wife Helen and I decided to buy two more cafes at Caswell. The Caswell cafes were originally summer only places selling buckets, spadesand takeaway drinks. After a few successful summers we decided to get proper espresso machines, indoor seating and log burners to see whether the cafes could open all year round which was a huge success! so when Rotherslade cafe came on the market a few years later, we bought that one too!
We are really lucky to have such great locations for all the cafes but more than that we have lovely locals who often are in the cafes everyday! we have also been incredibly lucky to have such great staff -nearly all of whom are locals too! What a blast it has been over the years we've had some brilliant staff parties each Christmas and summer, we try to do something different each time. Anyhow, probably the greatest pleasure is seeing the kids who started work for us at 14 years old, growing onto manage cafes, travel around the world and in a couple of cases actually marry fellow surfsiders!!
A HUGE thank you to everyone who has helped us to make Surfside Cafe's so successful - both staff, suppliers and most of all our loyal customers! We hope to continue that success in the years to come!