Fern Pit Café& Ferry

There has been a café and ferry at the seaward end of Riverside Crescent since 1910, rowing visitors across the Gannel to Crantock beach through the summer and feeding them crab on the way back — the crab hand-picked from Fern Pit's own boat, the Excelsior, along with Newquay Bay lobster, cooked to an hour's notice at the boathouse below. The previous operators retired after more than forty years, and since May 2024 the café — now trading as the Fern Pit Beach Kitchen — has been run by Pat and Avis Galvin, whose family also keeps the Catch seafood grill at Mawgan Porth. The season runs mid-March to the start of November; at low tide a wooden footbridge does the ferry's work, and in winter the Gannel gets its quiet back.