When not serving pints, The Bevy offers cooking classes to teach the surrounding social housing tenants how to cook healthily, while running a monthly weekend food market with stalls selling affordable local fresh fruit and vegetables. And this being Brighton, The Bevy also runs a diverse array of events including Latin Dance Exercise classes and occasional LGBTQ+ Bingo Nights hosted by a local drag queen.
I came to tuck into the pub’s Community Lunch. For a donation – I paid £4 – I piled a plate with rice, couscous and a fresh salad, which tasted even better knowing more than 70% of my meal was made from surplus food provided through a partnership with FareShare Sussex, another sustainable food project conveniently located a stone’s throw from the pub. At other times, there are traditional English Sunday roasts and Friday night pizzas at more typical prices, which bolster the pub’s takings to support its community initiatives.
After my meal, I took a pint out to sit in the pub garden, shaded by the same local Sussex variety fruit trees that supply the Old Tree Brewery back in the heart of town. As I sipped, I admired a little vegetable plot sprouting up between the apple and plum trees, and wondered where in this vast, sustainably minded city the veggies would end up.
Green Cities is a BBC Travel series that profiles innovative cities and towns around the world that are making bold strides towards a more sustainable future.
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