Brighton bakery Coburn and Baker opens new café in Bevendean

He walked out as a chef.

"They said, 'We're actually looking for a chef — can you cook?'" he recalls. "So I made a meal, the kind I would make at home with my mum.

"And they said, 'Yeah, you've got the job'."

It was an accidental beginning to a career that would eventually grow into one of the largest artisan bakery operations in Sussex.

The café has a lovely outdoor seating area (Image: The Argus)

Today, Coburn and Baker employs 45 people, with six vans delivering fresh bread and pastries across the county every morning. Joab jointly runs the business with his partner and co-founder Abi Coburn. The bakery now supplies some of Brighton's best-known cafés and restaurants — among them Café Coho and Trading Post.

But the latest chapter for the bakery is a new café, opened just over two weeks ago inside its Bevendean headquarters in Hyde Business Park.

Coburn and Baker has been based in Bevendean for five years, but the new café gives customers something different — a window directly into the working bakery next door, where bakers can be seen shaping dough, filling trolleys with croissants and loading the ovens.

Coburn & Bakery makes lots of different kinds of food (Image: The Argus)

The prices at the new café are also a breath of fresh air, with a flat white setting you back just £3.

Freshly made delights, ranging from croissants and sandwiches to pastries and pizzas, line the shelves.

Born in Israel, Joab came to Brighton 30 years ago, intending to stay for a few days. He never left.

"I love Brighton," he said. "I came for a week and stayed for my life."

He arrived as an artist, drawn to sculpture and ceramics, but it was the demands of family life that nudged him towards the kitchen. Joab and partner Abi have two children, both of who have now finished university.

Joab and his partner Abi, who built the business from the ground up (Image: The Argus)

Food for Friends gave him his start, 28 years ago. He later moved to another restaurant, where he was asked if he could also make cakes.

Abi, it turned out, was already a talented baker.

Joab began decorating her cakes, channelling the same instinct for shape and form that had drawn him to sculpture.

"I used my passion on cakes, instead of on ceramics," he said.

"And that was the point where we said, 'Okay, well, let's try to make a business out of it'."

Coburn & Bakery has been based in Bevendean for five years (Image: The Argus)

Coburn and Baker was founded in 2000, making cakes on a small, home scale — vegan and vegetarian only — from the couple's kitchen.

Two years later, they moved into an industrial unit in Hove.

They never sold direct to the public; instead, they grew quietly and steadily, supplying restaurants and high-end cafés.

"We never imagined we'd get to this size," Joab said.

Everything is still made by hand, Joab added — a point of principle even as the business has grown.

"We still use the word 'artisan', because we still make everything by hand," he said.

You can see right into the bakery from inside the café (Image: The Argus)

For a man who once planned to spend his life making sculptures, it has been quite a journey.

"I still enjoy it after all these years," he said. "It's hard work, but there's a lot of creativity involved.

"And it's definitely rewarding."

Coburn and Baker is open daily at Unit 9.2 The Hyde, Auckland Drive, Brighton.