Of all the challenges our seaside towns have faced over the years – the deprivation, the crumbling facades of once architecturally spendid buildings, plunging property prices – few of us thought one of the solutions was food.

But just look at Whitstable.

While the likes of Margate and Folkestone required a carpet bombing of investment in order to drag themselves out of the malaise they had found themselves mired in, Whitstable needed food. And a fish restaurant in particular.

The marketing of the Royal Native Oyster Stores back in the early to mid-1990s to certain figures in the national media sparked an interest in the then-sleepy little town.

It had never grown as big or been so reliant on tourism as some of its Kent coast neighbours. It was a small, unspoilt, place with a beach hidden behind housing and industry.

And that proved the key attraction – allowed a story to be told of how people in London could discover for themselves this little place just an hour or so outside of the capital.

It was a glorious example of being in the right place (literally) at the right time.

Better still, if you wanted to splash out on some oysters grown within range of your restaurant table, then you were in the right place.

Perhaps take a stroll down its narrow streets? Stroll around its working harbour, sit on its pebbled beach – stay for the day and maybe take home the classic fish and chips to eat in the car or train on your return?

All that and not a candy floss, art gallery or rollercoaster in sight.

The success of the fish restaurant (it had been a rather unremarkable tearoom before that) spawned others.

But it remained the pearl in the town’s shell.

Within just a few years, the place was swarming with nice little eateries and the town’s numerous pubs, which had long served the locals, found themselves suddenly toasting bumper numbers of weekend out-of-towners.

Such was its popularity they kept telling their pals about the place and word spread. More articles were written, more money spent in the town’s shops and inns.

Investment followed the crowds. A neat reversal to how other seaside towns dragged themselves out of the gutter.

Yes, house prices rocketed, but the locals benefitted too as their town morphed from forgotten seaside idyll into Islington-on-Sea – with property values to match.

While Folkestone and Margate would use art (and lots and lots of private and public cash, of course) to be helped to their tourism feet again, the catalyst for Whitstable was shellfish.

We could spend all day picking apart the many negatives the town’s popularity has brought it – but why bother?

Whitstable was saved courtesy of food. So ponder that next time you’re swigging back an oyster on the reimagined harbour this summer and wondering just how many eateries this once modest little place can stomach.