Transform a public toilet into a Mexican Cafe

Aim

From a disused public toilet to a Mexican Restaurant. Help us fund the extraction system we need to bring El Changarro back to life.

Some dreams refuse to give up.

Help us light the fire. 🔥

Five years ago, El Changarro began with one simple idea: to share the real flavours of Mexico with the people of Eastbourne — the food we grew up eating, the food we love, and the food that brings people together around the table.

Since then, El Changarro has changed, grown, moved, closed and started again.

And now, we are building its next chapter in one of Eastbourne’s most unexpected spaces.

From public toilets to a Mexican kitchen

Our new home is a former public toilet block in Eastbourne.

Where many people saw an empty, forgotten building, we saw the future home of El Changarro Lonchería: a small, welcoming Mexican kitchen full of colour, warmth and the smell of food cooked over real charcoal.

We have been transforming the space ourselves, one job at a time.

After our full-time jobs, we come here to paint, clean, repair, design, research, plan and solve problems we never knew existed. Then we go back to work the next day and do it all again.

We have invested our savings, our evenings, our weekends, our energy and a huge amount of love into this place.

Not because it is easy.

Because we believe it is worth building.

The heart of El Changarro ❤️‍🔥

The kitchen has always been the heart of El Changarro.

This time, we want to build it around something we truly love: cooking over charcoal.

Our Josper grill will sit at the centre of the kitchen, bringing fire and smoke to the food we serve — tacos al carbón, beautifully cooked meats, smoky flavours and dishes that simply cannot be recreated in the same way without real charcoal.

But to cook with charcoal safely and properly, we need the right professional extraction system.

That is why we are raising £2,200 to help cover the kitchen extraction, ducting and professional installation.

This is not just equipment behind the scenes. It is the essential system that will allow us to cook over real fire and move one major step closer to opening El Changarro Lonchería.

Help us finish what we started

We are closer than we have ever been, and we are incredibly proud of what we have built so far.

There is still work to do before we can open our doors, but the kitchen extraction is one of the most important pieces we need to put in place.

We are not asking you to rescue a dream.

We are asking you to help us finish building one.

If you would like to be part of the next chapter of El Changarro, you can contribute to the campaign, choose one of our limited thank-you rewards, or simply share our story with someone who might love what we are creating.

Every contribution, whatever the size, helps move the project forward.

And if you cannot contribute, that is absolutely okay. Sharing our campaign, following our journey and cheering us on means more than you might think.

We have put our time, our money, our hands and our hearts into this little place.

Now we are ready to light the fire. 🔥

Help us light it.

From our little corner of Mexico to you,
¡Nos vemos en la mesa!

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 18th November 2026 at 10:35am