Another café opening in Tunbridge Wells might not be headline news but Ziggy’s, a new café in our home town (on St John’s Road), deserves a fanfare more than most and not just for the amazing coffee and desserts on offer.
Its owner, Ziggy Okubay, came to Tunbridge Wells in 2011 as an unaccompanied teenage asylum seeker from Eritrea. After crossing through Northern Africa and Europe Ziggy arrived in the UK on a lorry from Calais. Placed in an asylum centre near Ashford, he was eventually given accommodation in Tunbridge Wells and began building a life in the town. After working at KFC for six years, eventually becoming the manager, he realised his dream of opening a restaurant this summer by working with three other local restaurant owners: Abdul Munim, Ray Zoman and Shamim Khandakar.
Together they have created Ziggy’s, a bright, colourful space filled with light and the scent of warm sugar and fragrant coffee. It is a cafe that caters to the whole family, especially those with a sweet tooth, and yet it is also something more – a triumph of hard work and hope; belief and community.
Here’s what one of our team members said following her visit with her children:
“Ziggy’s is a wonderful, welcoming space that caters to the whole family, especially those with a sweet tooth, but it is also the results of an immense amount of hard work, belief and hope of its owner Ziggy Okubay. Do go!”
