Axminster's Community Waffle House expanding into Seaton

The hugely popular Community Waffle House in Axminster is to open a second location at Seaton Hospital.

Permission has been granted by NHS property services to re-purpose the former kitchen in Seaton Hospital to set up 'Waffle Seaton' – a partnership between Seaton-based community group Re:store and Waffle – the not-for-profit waffle house network – to pioneer a café-style community hub on a mission to fight loneliness.

For the team behind the project, the creation of a café-style community hub in the heart of Seaton Hospital offers an exciting opportunity to explore and strengthen the synergy between community and clinical services; hospitality and hospitals.

Both social enterprises involved have a passion to maximise the potential of hospitality spaces to bring about restoration in communities, harnessing the power of natural conversations that occur in safe and familiar environments.

Re:store, a community interest company formed out of the Seaton Coronavirus Community Group, will oversee the community work at Waffle Seaton, using the venue as a base from which to run their outreach work including partnering with social prescribing teams to offer support to those most in need of restoration in the community.

"As well as creating a safe, warm and welcoming space for current hospital staff, visitors to the hospital and the general public, we are also looking to partner with a whole host of local user groups who would benefit from a space where they can come and be noticed and heard," said Ben Tucker, director of Re:store.

The partnership between the two local non-profit organisations is a match made in heaven as far as Waffle director Matt Smith is concerned.

"We have always wanted to make the Waffle model big enough to work in other communities but we also know that the community work required differs enormously from place to place," he said.

"That is why we have been developing a network model that revolves around 'marrying' Waffle with an indigenous community group in a host location.

"Given our strong existing relationship with Re:store and their great community links, this seemed like an obvious pairing for our first marriage."

The work of NHS properties to renovate the space is due to be finished by the end of March with the Waffle Seaton team hoping that they will be able to open the venue to the general public by summer 2022.

James Page at NHS Property services said: "We have been supporting a number of social prescribing initiatives in East Devon over the past couple of years. The Re:store and Waffle project at Seaton Community Hospital makes use of a former kitchen that has not been used for a number of years and it's now really encouraging to see how it's being repurposed as a community use."

For further information on the progress of the project see @waffleseaton on Facebook or Instagram.