Littlehampton 60th Bonfire Celebrations

The Fish Factory is sponsoring the Littlehampton’s Bonfire Celebrations on Saturday 27th October 2012 for the 2nd year in a row. This year will be bigger and better as it is the 60th birthday of this prestigious event.

Littlehampton Bonfire Society brings you one of the best bonfire celebrations along the South Coast attracting over 25,000 visitors. There will be lots of activity throughout the day all round the town. In the evening there will be a torchlight procession formed of people from bonfire societies from all over Sussex. The procession will be adorned with colourful floats, local groups, bands and steam engines who will all finish their route at the seafront with a mammoth bonfire and a breathtaking fireworks display. All proceeds from the street collections will go to local charities.

The perfect way to round off a perfect day is a visit to The Fish Factory in Littlehampton (5 East Street, BN17 6AU). The restaurant will stay open all day until 11.30pm. We are already getting bookings for October so call us now to reserve your table on 01903 715000. Click here to see some of our delicious menu items, including our famous Fish Meze.

The Diplomat logo - Proto Restaurant Group

It’s new, it’s exciting … It’s a new way to eat at Food restaurant – our new menu called “The Diplomat” which is available at Food from 8th May 2012.

Our award-winning chefs have spent days and months designing this new menu with you in mind.  At Food restaurant we have worked to design exquisite dishes with the finest quality but, with exception, we have managed to develop them so they cost you less than ever before.  For 2 courses £12.80 and 3 for £15.00 we are hopeful that we have managed to get a price that can’t be beaten, even if you were to try and cook these dishes at home, why have the stress? Let us do the washing up!

The Diplomat unique dishes are not to be missed and they include our latest inventions such as Steak Au Pouvoir, which is prime braised steak sealed in pink peppercorns and garlic butter, oven roasted with mushrooms and red wine, served with pan fried spring greens and roast potatoes. And also our Creole Panga Crumble which is filleted panga, topped with south American spices and breadcrumbs,  oven baked, served with coconut and turmeric rice.

What are you waiting for? Get dialling 01903 227780 NOW to reserve your table at Food restaurant in Worthing, West Sussex.

The Diplomat Menu is available from Monday to Thursday and Sunday from 6pm.

The Fish Factory and Food Tourist Maps

Look at our brand new new tourist maps!
The Proto Restaurant Team has been busy developing new tourist maps both for Worthing and Littlehampton. The maps feature funky little illustrations and also include the website and contact information for the local tourist office and other useful places of interest.

If you are lucky enough there are flyers going around the town offering free desserts and these will be in most local bed and breakfast establishments and hotels, so keep an eye out for them. This promotion is part of a new initiative to increase tourism in Worthing and Littlehampton.

You can also download these maps from our website. For the Worthing map, click here, and for the Littlehampton map, click here.

DON’T FORGET …

Food and The Fish Factory are working closely with the Council to produce Worthing’s first ever Food & Drink Festival. The Food & Drink Festival runs from 7th to 15th July.

Events in South Street include:

• Free kids cookery classes throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday
• Wine tasting with the famous world renowned John Radford
• The biggest cook-off ever: Many West Sussex restaurants going head-to-head with their best dishes and best chefs including the-multi award winning Food restaurant, The Fish Factory, the Chilcha, Indigo and Northbrook College
• The Fish Factory will be holding a fish skills speciality master class demonstrating how to fillet fish, such as opening shell fish etc.
• Northbrook College will be holding a free game and meat master class.

Check out the festival brochure for full listings of all your local favourite restaurants that have entered the cook-off/demonstrations

LEISURE LEAGUE WINNERS 2012

The Proto Restaurant Group football team, made up of members of staff from Proto’s restaurants, have won their local leisure league at Worthing Leisure Centre. The team play their competitive league matches every Thursday evening and they train together on a Sunday. The team have made a special point of noting how much they enjoy being part of the team and how much it boosts morale and increases their teamwork together in the restaurants.

Proto Restaurant Group owner Andy Sparsis has helped the team out by sponsoring them for their kit, and helping out with administrative costs such as pitch hire and match fees. Playing in a classy black and white kit, the team now has an impressive trophy to show-off as well.

The team receive their trophies this week, so look out for more pictures in our April Newsletter – if you aren’t already signed up to receive this, click here and sign up today to receive our monthly newsletter as well as all of our latest offers and promotions.

Andy Sparsis during Jail Break Promotion

Proto Restaurant Group owner Andy Sparsis was arrested on 7th March as a charity promotion for the ‘Love Your Hospitals‘ charity. On arrival at Durrington Police custody suite, his bail was set at £1000 and he was placed in the cells. His task, was to phone everybody he knew from local businessmen/women to suppliers, to ask them to donate money in order to raise the bail money required and allow him to be released.

Andy successfully raised his bail limit and more, raising over £2000 for the ‘Love Your Hospitals‘ charity and the new cardiac unit at our local Worthing Hospital. Proto owner Andy was not the only one to be arrested in similar fashion, and his bail money, combined with that of fellow cell mates Julian Church, Darren Crabb and Lee Noakes, over £6000 was raised for the charity, a fantastic effort all-round.

Everybody at Proto Restaurant Group’s restaurants – Food and The Fish Factory (Worthing & Littlehampton) -  is extremely proud of Andy and all the continued work he is doing for the charity and we are very happy to be associated with such a worthwhile cause. If you want to read more about the Jail Break, pick up a copy of the Worthing Herald this week for a double page feature on the charitable promotion.

Andy Sparsis, Julian Church, Darren Crabb and Lee Noakes

The Fish Factory Littlehampton

On the 14th February, the members of staff at all three of Proto Restaurant Group’s restaurants supported the ‘GO RED IN FEB’ campaign by wearing red clothes to work. The campaign, part of the ‘Love Your Hospital’ charity of which Proto owner Andy Sparsis is a patron, was aimed at local businesses and organisations to raise money for the proposed new Cardiac Cath Lab at Worthing Hospital.

With each staff member donning red for the day paying £1 to the charity, Proto Restaurant Group quickly raised a lot of money, and with the addition of diners in the restaurant’s adding to the donations, we were able to raise over £200 for the campaign.

Food Restaurant Staff

You can still donate to the campaign, by visiting the ‘Love Your Hospitals’ Just Giving page at http://www.justgiving.com/strichardshospital/Donate and selecting the amount you wish to donate. Remember, every single penny makes a difference to the campaign, and with heart disease one of the more common causes of serious illness in Worthing, the new Cardiac Cath Lab can save and change so many lives, so please donate whatever you can.

If you were involved in the ‘GO RED IN FEB’ campaign, why not email us some details of what you did and some pictures and we may even feature them in our next blog or newsletter! Email us at goredinfeb@protorestaurantgroup.com.

The Fish Factory Worthing

Creole Panga - £11

The Fish Factory launched it’s brand new spoil menu last Friday – 10th February – and it has been met with a great reaction over Valentines weekend and the past week.

The addition of Empanadillas – Rope grown mussels, Greenland prawns, line caught cod and potato croutons mixed with a paprika cheese sauce and fried in a Spanish beer pastry parcel – at the bargain price of just £6 has given everybody that visits The Fish Factory another brilliant dish to choose from.

The spoil menu also welcomes our very own Baker Street Whiting – Polenta dusted local whiting pan fried and baked with garlic sauté potatoes topped with spring onions – for just £10 and we have already had some fantastic feedback with customers already claiming this is one of their favourite dishes in the restaurant.

Despite only being launched a week ago, the new look menu has managed to become even more than popular than before already so if you want to come along and see what all the fuss is about, give The Fish Factory a ring on 01903 207123 (Worthing) or  01903 715000 (Littlehampton) to book a table.

Remember as well, if you signup to the Proto Club free of charge then you will receive a FREE glass of wine with your meal.

It’s already been an exciting start to 2012 for Proto Restaurant Group with changes to the menus in all our restaurants and several more planned in the upcoming months, so make sure you keep checking our blog and reading our monthly newsletters (you need to signup for these) to keep up-to-date with everything.

Baker Street Whiting - £10

Proto Restaurant Group is proud to be a part of the ‘Go Red Campaign’ for the Love Your Hospitals charity which Proto Restaurant Group owner Andy Sparsis is a patron of.

All of our restaurants have been fully supportive of the charity in the past with Food Restaurant hosting the launch of the Cath Lab Appeal back in June 2011 and The Fish Factory sponsoring the Superhero Fun Walk for the same cause in September 2011.

The latest fundraiser in support of the new £1million cardiac cath lab is ‘Go Red in Feb’ and Proto Restaurant Group are doing exactly that on Valentines Day. All members of staff at all three of our restaurants have been invited to wear anything red and donate a minimum of £1 to the charity. Why not book a table on the 14th February and come along dressed in red and support the cause yourself. Call 01903 227780 (Food), 01903 207123 (The Fish Factory, Worthing) or 01903 715000 (The Fish Factory, Littlehampton) to check availability and book a table.

Proto Restaurant Group is calling everybody else to support the Cardiac Cath Lab Appeal and join in with ‘Wear Red in Feb’, even if it’s just a red tie, red socks or red lipstick, it can be absolutely anything red, the important thing is you take part and donate a minimum of £1 per person to the appeal. Proto’s aim is to get as many businesses in Worthing to ‘Wear Red’ to raise as much money as possible for a worthy cause.

There will be a ‘Go Red in Feb’ Wall of Fame at Worthing Hospital, so everybody that get’s involved with be placed on the wall and receive FREE promotion at the same time so please get involved and support your local community.

To get involved please contact Lesley-Anne or Tina at Worthing Hospital at hello@loveyourhospital.org or phone: 0800 028 4890. Check out the website www.loveyourhopsitals.org for more info.

Down Town Cyprus Sandwich

Another new dish on the menu is the “Moscow Merchant’s Kiev” - British chicken breast minced and stuffed with garlic butter, leeks and chives. Oven baked in bread crumbs served with mash potato. This is one of the favourite dishes in the restaurant at the moment and we really recommend you come in and experience it for yourself. Call us on 01903 227780 to book a table and view the full menu online here.

It’s not just the lunch menu that’s had a refresh for the New Year though, we’ve updated our main menu with the amazing addition of our Paella Stuffed Squid for just £14.90! Why not see what else our main menu has to offer?

It’s not just Food Restaurant that is undergoing a menu update though, The Fish Factory will soon be launching it’s new Spoil Menu so keep checking back here for updates on new menus, dishes and events at Proto Restaurant Group.

Call us at The Fish Factory Littlehampton on 01903 715000 or at Worthing on 01903 207123 to book a table or come and see us at Food in Worthing, call us on 01903 227780 to book a table.

Stuart Slevin

How are you finding the role of Executive Chef at The Fish Factory?

It’s brilliant. Obviously there are added pressures being the Executive Chef but im getting to do lots of other things like Health & Safety and Food Hygiene checks which is really good. The NVQ in Management that I completed before we spoke last year has come in really handy and I now have lots of lovely spreadsheets and training documents everywhere, which is nice because it’s what I’m interested in anyway!

Has anything changed in your role during the year?

I’ve basically just gained more and more responsibility as the year has gone on really. I’m now the Premises Alcohol License Holder which means that any sales of alcohol are my responsibility so it’s important I ensure everybody is following the appropriate age laws which to be fair, everybody here is excellent at doing.

The management side of things has really taken a prominent role as well, im doing a lot more consulting with the restaurant managers and other chefs which is also nice.

What does 2012 have in store for the menus?

Well, we are updating the spoil menu for the new year, including bringing back the Bouillabaisse after so many requests! Since we last spoke as well, we have introduced Sunday Roasts at The Fish Factory, offering a choice of either Beef or Pork and we are now selling 30/40 of them each Sunday which is great! Who knows, we might add Lamb to the list too, but for the time being we’ll definately stay clear of Turkey, let everyone recover from Christmas first!

Enough about work then, what do you get up to outside of work?

I love to cycle! This year me and Proto owner Andy Sparsis completed the London to Brighton bike race which was brilliant! It was my 18th time completing the course but my first for 5 years so I really enjoyed getting back into it. As part of that, we initiated a cycle to work scheme for Proto Restaurant Group and now numerous members of staff at Proto cycle into work everyday which is just fantastic!

So, the Olympic year has arrived, being a keen cyclist are you excited?

To be honest, im still quite upset about the ticketing for the event! It’s disappointing that so many people couldn’t get hold of tickets for such a once-in-a-lifetime event in this country, I just feel like we’ve all been scammed!

That said though, obviously not everyone that comes over for the games will be staying in London, so hopefully with our excellent position on the coast with good transport links to London, plenty of people will come and stay in Worthing and Littlehampton and bring us lots more business. It can only be good for businesses in our area.

So there you have it, that’s Stuart Slevin, Executive Chef at The Fish Factory. Why not come in and meet the whole team? Call us at The Fish Factory Littlehampton on 01903 715000 or at Worthing on 01903 207123 to book a table or come and see us at Food in Worthing, call us on 01903 227780 to book a table.