This was first written on my favourite hardcover notebook after a day trip to Margate in April. I’ve transposed it onto this platform for sharing with those who enjoy breakfasts in cafes on roads less travelled.
On a chilly Easter Sunday morning, we walked along Dalby Square in Cliftonville, Margate, away from the promenade and into suburbia. Once on Dalby Road, we found Dalby Cafe.
Our search for the greasy spoon cafe, which has a 5-star rating on Tripadvisor, saw us in a residential part of the seaside town, which tourists may otherwise not care to explore.
We walked into the eatery and discovered we were its only customers. It was simple, with a Kentish charm and the edge of London’s East End, and what-you-see-is-what-you-get decor that was both comforting and familiar. Dalby Cafe has been around since shortly after World War 2, says its website (as one might easily believe upon visiting).
A waitress in her teens offered us hot drinks and took our order. At the same time, she asked if we’d like to buy tickets for a raffle being drawn that day. I bought a few and surveyed the prize: crisps, bottles of wine and Prosecco, peanuts, chocolates , biscuits and other confectionary were all bundled into an open wicker basket wrapped in cellophane with ribbons tied at the top.
We were then motioned towards a table in the far corner of the cafe while the shop floor was being bleach cleaned, and sat down at wrought iron tables with padded red faux leather seats. Posters with inspirational quotes decked the walls. “Good things take time”, said the one next to our table.
Thankfully, our breakfast hardly took any time at all. Black pudding, bacon, sausage, hash browns, mushroom, plum tomato, fried egg, wholemeal toasted bread and lashings of black pepper and Tobasco sauce filled the plate and undercut the inoffensive stench of bleach cleaned floors. The spread awakened the senses as I managed to get varied bits of its content to fit all together on a single forkful.
Groups of students with breakfast budgets of £10 filled the tables next to us. In a short while, the place was busier and the trials and tribulations of student life filled the air: “I don’t know what to do next year after I’ve finished”. “I may go travelling”. “I like/don’t like my shared accommodation.” They also ordered fry ups and fell silent while they savoured them.
Dalby Cafe filled many hungry holes that day and is the perfect start to a seaside trip. I didn’t win the raffle prize but if I did, I would have preferred it were for another breakfast! On Dalby Square, at 4-6 Dalby Road (on the right() it stands there, as it has done since the 1940s ,proudly nourishing hungry day-trippers, students and anyone in need of a hearty fry up.