The Pipeline

The rock and roll jukebox rules the ground floor; upstairs, the stage barely leaves room for sixty people. On Little East Street, a stone's throw from the Palace Pier and The Lanes, that cramped nature is the most defining trait of The Pipeline: a rock bar, restaurant, and grassroots venue where DIY live acts take over almost every night.

An upstairs floor ceded to promoters

Thomas Evrenos, a banker turned publican, had opened a Pipeline in London in 2009. In 2016, he moved to Brighton and took over the property previously occupied by Northern Lights. The Brighton Pipeline started in 2017 as a venue for emerging concerts. The venue does not book bands itself: it invites promoters to book the upstairs floor, with a QSC KLA-12 PA, Yamaha TF1 desk, Marshall backline, and a minimal stage. The 2025 technical rider puts the capacity at around 60, reserved for those over 18, and sets the live act curfew at 23:00. Music Venue Properties describes it as a trade school: more than 200 concerts a year and a springboard for local bands like Lambrini Girls, Ditz, and Snayx. Homegrown and Alternative Escape have also used that room.

Terrace, vegan kitchen, and a Grade II listing

Downstairs is the bar: a 100% vegan menu, a terrace sheltered from the seafront wind, and a clientele of musicians and regulars. Number 6 Little East Street is a Grade II listed building, from the late 18th or early 19th century, known for decades as Andrew's Cottage. Two floors over a basement, period shopfronts, and, today, pink neon with the venue's P. There is no private parking.

Seven invisible years and a community seal

For seven years, the club operated as a concert venue with a license intended for a restaurant. In July 2024, the Brighton & Hove licensing panel recognized its use as a grassroots music venue, maintained the hours, and required two SIA door staff on Fridays and Saturdays from 22:00. Evrenos insisted then that the venue was not a standing bar: it did not program DJs or a dance floor, but musicians playing. In February 2025, the building was registered as an Asset of Community Value. On July 23, 2026, Music Venue Properties bought the property—the tenth in the Own Our Venues campaign—and took it off the speculative market. Evrenos remains in charge.

Cook in the small room

On June 28, 2026, Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) closed the Everywhere At Once festival with a sold-out show in this very room, with tracks like The Rockafeller Skank and Right Here, Right Now. Cook, an investor in Music Venue Properties, has defended these rooms as the lifeblood of the industry: the place where you learn the trade before the building is turned into flats.