Why do people keep coming back to Rye again and again? Many visitors make return trips because Rye is a town with just the right atmosphere, as Oliver Kinsley Director & Co-Owner of The Grapevine on Conduit Hill explains.
Walk through Rye on a quiet evening and you quickly realise something important: people do not fall in love with towns purely because of what they sell. They fall in love with how those places make them feel.
That may sound obvious, but it is becoming increasingly important economically as well as culturally.
I’ve just been scrolling on TikTok, and realised that for decades, businesses largely competed on convenience, price and efficiency. Faster service, cheaper products and bigger scale became the dominant model almost everywhere. Yet increasingly, particularly in hospitality and tourism, people are moving in the opposite direction. They are seeking atmosphere.
They want places with character. Places that feel human. Places with warmth, memory and identity. Places that ooze ambience to their TikTok followers!
You can see it across Europe. The café in Paris where people sit for hours over coffee. The wine bars in northern Italy spilling into old streets at dusk. The small taverns in Spain where conversation matters more than speed. People rarely remember those places because they offered the cheapest drink or the quickest service. They remember how those places felt.
And increasingly, the same is becoming true here in Britain too. The British customer is fussier than ever, and what an opportunity this presents.
Amongst small businesses, atmosphere is often dismissed as something intangible – a ‘nice extra’ rather than a serious commercial consideration. In reality, atmosphere may now be one of the most valuable assets a business or town can possess.
Music matters. Lighting matters. Architecture matters. Friendly staff matter. The look of a street matters. Even small details – candles on tables, the sound of conversation, outdoor seating, old brickwork, plants in windows, jazz drifting through an open doorway – all contribute to something surprisingly powerful: emotional connection.
People return to places that give them a feeling.
In an age where almost anything can be ordered online within minutes, physical businesses have had to evolve. Shops, cafés, pubs and restaurants are no longer competing solely on product. They are competing on experience.
That is particularly important for towns like Rye.
Historic towns possess something modern developments often struggle to create artificially: authenticity. Rye’s cobbled streets, independent businesses, old buildings and slower pace already provide the foundations many larger places try desperately to imitate.
The challenge is not preserving the town in aspic, but allowing it to evolve carefully while protecting the atmosphere that makes people care about it in the first place.
Independent businesses play a major role in that. Chains can provide consistency, but independents provide personality. They shape the identity of a place. They create the café people recommend to friends, the wine bar visitors remember months later, or the small shop that gives a high street its character.
Importantly, atmosphere also affects local economies in ways people do not always notice. If visitors stay longer, they spend more. If they feel emotionally connected to a town, they return. If streets feel vibrant and welcoming, businesses benefit collectively rather than individually.
In many ways, atmosphere becomes a form of invisible infrastructure.
Perhaps this explains why there is renewed interest in slower, experience-led hospitality. After years dominated by speed, algorithms and screen time, many people are craving environments that feel real and social again. Long conversations in pubs. Live music. Independent cafés. Places with texture and personality.
Ironically, smaller historic towns may now be better positioned for the future than they realise.
Rye does not need to become a miniature London. Its strength lies precisely in being something different. A town with atmosphere. A town people remember.
And in modern business, being memorable may be one of the most valuable strategies of all. Anyway, back to TikTok.
What do you think?
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Image Credits: Oliver Kinsley .