Who doesn’ t love the i360?
Love it or hate it- and at Whistler Towers we love it- the i360 is here to stay. Cohosts of Show Us Your Bits podcast, Josie Lloyd and Alice Rivers-Cripps went to meet Dragon’ s Den entrepreneur Sarah Willingham who has taken over the iconic landmark
The first thing to note about Sarah Willingham is just how down to earth she is.“ I’ m a hugger,” she says, embracing us in the café, which has had a new lick of terracotta paint and serves excellent coffee and pastries. The mood boards at the back show off Sarah’ s ambitious plans.
It’ s the Monday after the Brighton Marathon weekend and her staff might be exhausted, having served beers at the heaving bar until late the night before, but Sarah has an energetic‘ can do’ attitude that’ s infectious.
Only three weeks after opening, Sarah said it was a matter of cobbling together what she had to meet demand on marathon day. She tipped over flower planters to make seats, put up tables from B & Q and said the bar was practically Selotaped together. She even ran out of beer at one point and had to borrow some kegs from Seahorse. She never expected to have a WhatsApp group called‘ Emergency Beer’ she says, but Brighton really stepped up and everyone had a great time.“ We all love what we do and that’ s what we’ re good at. Banging tunes, great service. It was really great to see everyone enjoying themselves.”
Sarah, originally from Stoke, clearly has a passion for the hospitality sector. Having worked for several international companies, including Pizza Express where she learnt the ropes of running a public company.“ But I wanted to control my own diary. I wanted to be a mum,” she says, and the only way to do that was going it alone, turning her company the Bombay Bicycle Club into one of the largest Indian restaurant chains in the country.
After appearing in two seasons of Dragon’ s Den, Sarah set off on an around the world adventure with her husband, Michael and four children for three years, before settling in Brighton.
She always said she wouldn’ t do anything here as she likes her anonymity, but she first heard about the i360 in mid-December last year.“ The administrators must have contacted loads of people as a decision needed to be made by the 23rd December,” she said, but to her surprise, there were no bids. Sarah says she just assumed that someone else would step up, so was surprised when she got a call asking her to consider taking it on.
She went to look at the site with Michael in January, with whom she runs the successful bar group, Nightcap. She said the tower serves itself, as people go up and down, but the rest of the site was full of potential“ I thought: This should be amazing. It will only take someone who loves hospitality.”
Then her kids said that they had heard that the i360 was going to get dismantled, and within a week the whole thing happened very quickly.
Sarah met with the key stakeholders to discuss the debt topping £ 50 million, owed by the council to the loan board.“ Look,” she says.“ I totally get how controversial that it. I’ m a local. It’ s my money too. I get it. But in my decision making, I had to remove the bit about it that’ s really controversial because it is here. It has been built. Now what? We can’ t reverse it. Someone has to take it and make it work, or it gets dismantled, or it rots. Those are the options in front of us. So I thought, well, I’ ll give it a go.”
While she’ s hit the ground running, she recognises she’ s keen not to rush things.“ You don’ t move into a house and re-decorate in week one.” She is planning several‘ activations’ over the coming months to really put the i360 on the map. As well as regenerating the restaurant, she’ s keen to open the bar upstairs, which we all agree has the best windproof terrace on the beach.
Amongst other plans, she’ s thinking of a
sauna and a proper fish and chips truck. As the only business on the beach that doesn’ t have the council as a landlord, she’ s also planning on putting on events and barbeques on the beach.“ We have Rockwater at one end and Sea Lanes and Soho House at the other, and we’ re the middle of the prom. It’ s supposed to have a heartbeat,” she says.
What’ s key, however, is that as well as attracting tourists, the i360 is a hub for locals. Focussing on the community will be central to Sarah’ s year-round planning, which is why she wants to keep a ride up the tower priced at just £ 5 for local residents.“ If you need your head cleared, there’ s nothing better than a quick half an hour up there,” she says.“ The view is sensational. It removes all the adrenaline and nonsense from your head.”