The Park Crescent, Park Crescent, Brighton

Katharina Kirchner compares the atmosphere in The Park Crescent to The Queen Vic in Eastenders.

“Everyone knows each other,” she says with a grin, “and we have everything: tears, laughter, late night dancing, drama – you name it.”

Does that make her Barbara Windsor?

“An ex-work colleague of mine mentioned it,” she smiles. “But being German it didn’t ring a bell immediately. But then I saw her and I was pleasantly surprised. I’d have that beehive. I like it.”

The regulars at The Park Crescent are surely a bit easier than Peggy Mitchell’s lot, but Kirchner has managed to win over the locals in double- quick time. She’s even talked them into helping her refurbish the pub. “Getting to know all my regulars I found we have an amazing array of talent living in the street. Usually when breweries do a refurbishment they have their own interior designers and take a cookie cutter approach.

“But I wanted to do something different. I negotiated with the brewery and asked them if they would let me do it. Much to my astonishment they said yes and were willing to pay for it.”

The Hall & Woodhouse pub is hidden at the end of the beautiful sweep of Regency terraces in Park Crescent. Furniture maker Gaetano D’Adamo, who runs Maker’s Mark furniture design, lives over the road.

“He showed me round his house and it was amazing. He does unusual bespoke things with wood and creates fantastic designs. So over a glass of wine we decided he should do the back bar.”

Now a sleek-lined Art Deco piece frames the pub’s centrepiece.

“I like mid-century modern design, so it is an amalgamation of both our tastes,” she says.

“We wanted something simple and stylish.”

Handily, living next door to D’Adamo, is Charlotte Couzens, an antique dealer who specialises in Kirchner’s favourite: mid-century furniture.

“She sold me some lovely chairs. They are classic Parker Knoll chairs: beautiful and elegant and proper 1950s British.”

A couple of doors down lives Louise Coates, an upholsterer who runs relovestuff. She has a workshop over a garage in the street and transformed the pub’s tattered furnishings. Coates leads upholstery workshops as well as the shop dedicated to giving old furniture a new lease of life.

“Everything I needed I got in this one road and with the help of my new neighbours,” she beams. “It is a community refurbishment.”

Kirchner moved to England eight years ago when she left Germany for Winchester. She relocated to London where she met her partner, Christian Harris, who co-manages The Park Crescent. After several years working in marketing the duo were sick of the nine to five.

Harris had been itching to get back to Brighton after 20 years at the helm of Forbidden Planet comics in the North Laine. Kirchner had visited and loved the place too.

She’d fallen for Britain’s pub culture in Winchester, where she learned to love the timeless pastime of hunkering down with a pint and the paper.

“Pub culture in Britain is unique. I would never have been comfortable in Germany going in a bar on my own. Here it is like a second home. I fell in love with that and it probably laid the ground stone to take on pub by myself.”

A few of her favourite things at The Park Crescent include the food – “classic, well-done pub grub with a few quirky alternatives such as ginger beer battered halloumi and chips” – the mix of regulars and the range of beers, including Badger guest ales and Leffe on tap. Then there’s the journey to work, which consists of short walk downstairs and swivel round the bar, which even Peggy Mitchell wouldn’t moan about.