Park Social Cafe opens in War Memorial Park, Basingstoke

Park Social Café opened on Monday, October 14 and is serving a range of food and drinks, including Donna Italia sourdough pizzas, toasted ciabattas, cakes and a wide menu of Costa Coffee drinks.

The café, which is inside the John Arlott Pavillion in the War Memorial Park, looks over the park, football field and the skate park, with a patio area for seats outside.

Centre Manager Dan Fowkes said: “It’s a fantastic social space to sit down and enjoy the surroundings of the war memorial park.”

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Inside the cafe (Image: Newsquest)

Dan plans to foster a “customer-driven” café and will install a suggestion box for customers to give feedback and tell the café what they want on the menu.

The café will be open from 8am on Saturdays, to cater to the Park Run runners, with the start and finish line of the run visible from the café.

Dan is enthusiastic about the opportunities for the café in the summer, and he explained that there will be outdoor seating and they will serve Mr Whippy ice cream and milkshakes.

He said: “It will be an environment for families to come down so they can let their kids play on the field and see them at the skate park.

“They can actually still be watching them but sat outside having a drink themselves.”

With the new café opening, the John Arlott Pavillion had its first renovation since 1990, changing the exposed brickwork and quarry tiles into a modern space with wooden flooring, archways and large windows.

Park Social Café is open 9:30am-2:30pm until the launch of its full opening hours on November 25th. It will then be open 9:30am-7pm Mondays-Fridays, 8am-4pm Saturdays and 10am-3pm Sundays.