A South West coffee chain has reopened the doors to one of Sidmouth’s historic buildings - with a promise to bring the community together and deliver its trademark customer service.

Coffee#1 gave the Herald a sneak peek inside the former Trumps building, ahead of its first full day in operation today (Friday).

The Grade II listed building, in Fore Street, has been closed since September 2014 after being at the heart of the community for 200 years.

The chain, which has a store in Exeter, put in a planning application in August to turn the former grocer’s into a café seating 81 customers.

Rosie Harris, Coffee#1 champion manager, said: “Out of all the cafes, this had the most interest. We have had an obscene number of people staring through the window.

“The main thing is customer service, smiley, friendly individual service.”

Builders discovered old shop receipts and have framed them for customers to examine, alongside other original features.

Gertruda Grudyte, people trainer for Coffee#1, said: “People who have been in have said ‘I loved that you kept a little bit of this’ and for people who never knew about Trumps, they can see this history and they can connect to the story, which is great. We always try to keep all the original features, if possible.”

The award-winning business aims to ‘turn back the clock’ and chooses not to install Wi-Fi to encourage customers to talk to each other to ‘bring the community together’.