A NEW cafe is preparing to fuel its customers after throwing open its doors at Southend Airport Business Park. 

Sandra Kozubek and Alessia Quatraccioni both have experience working in catering and hospitality, but have now teamed up to launched their very own business. 

Love the Bite opened inside the Launchpad - a multi-business workspace - yesterday offering “delicious and exciting breakfast and lunch meals”, which are made from scratch and prioritise south Essex-based suppliers.

The £150million Airport Business Park, off Cherry Orchard Way, Rochford, opened its doors in 2022 and has gone from strength to strength since.

Owners - Alessia Quatraccioni and Sandra Kozubek Owners - Alessia Quatraccioni and Sandra Kozubek (Image: Launchpad Southend)

Talking about taking the leap from being an employee to founding her own business, Sandra said: “We’ve both always been so passionate about good food, quality ingredients and making customers happy.

“It was time to step out on our own and put all that passion and love into our own thing.

“We’re really excited to get going.”

The café is open to the public Monday to Friday from 8am until 3pm offering a range of hot and cold food, snacks and drinks, and will additionally be providing the catering for events, meetings and bookings at the Launchpad.

Success - Alessia, Laura Johnson and Sandra Success - Alessia, Laura Johnson and Sandra (Image: Launchpad Southend) Sandra added: “Me and Alessia met at work, starting our own business is exciting and scary.

“We are proud though, we are absolutely proud and it has been quite busy already, the bacon rolls are flying.”

The Launchpad is just off Cherry Orchard Way so the café is also hoping to attract people from other businesses and dog-walkers enjoying Cherry Orchard Country Park.

Preview event - A picture from a preview event at Love the Bite Preview event - A picture from a preview event at Love the Bite (Image: Launchpad Southend) Launchpad’s manager, Laura Johnson said: “We’re so happy to welcome Love the Bite.
“We specialise in helping start-ups and scale-ups to grow so Sandra and Alessia will have access to the same support as any of our customers.

“As a collaborative business community, all of our customers are really looking forward to supporting and being fuelled through their own business journey by Love the Bite.”

Love the Bite hosted a special preview event for customers of the Launchpad in Friday before opening yesterday.