New trends in cafés
Your local café doesn't have to simply be a place to drink coffee. Now you can pay it a visit to knit, volunteer to serve food, have a snog, and go mobile.
Knitting and crochet have experienced a massive revival in recent years, but 21st century yarn enthusiasts don’t want to sit at home knitting scarves in front of the telly like their grannies did – they’re making it a social activity.
Knit one, purl one, sip one
First came a few knitting clubs, following the US trend; now cafés are bringing the activity out into the open. In London’s Kings Cross – not the first location you’d expect genteel hipsters to get together over a cocktail and some clacking needles – is the excellent Drink, Shop & Do.
This beautiful, kitsch café is much more than just a knit-stop, the whole airy space (it’s an old Victorian bathhouse) is given over to retro design, and you can buy all the vintage furniture and homewares on display.
Owners Kristie and Coralie run all sorts of events from games nights to comedy, chocolate making and a recent science and craft night, where attendees learnt how to make their very own cuddly bacteria.
If you’re a knitting purist, check out The Yarn Cake in Glasgow, which runs knit nights on Tuesdays and Thursday (“knitorials” are also on the schedule), and has speciality yarns on offer alongside the home-baked German breads and cakes.
DIY
OK, I know you expect to get some service when you take the trouble to leave the house and cough up cash in a café, but a new breed of volunteer cafés are mixing it up by offering punters the chance to join in and help – if they so wish – or just take advantage of a community café with low overheads and ethically sourced food.
In London’s Haringey, for example, is The Station House Community Café, run by food charity FoodCycle, where volunteers serve up tasty vegetarian meals and cakes, all made from food that would otherwise have been thrown away.
Over in east London’s Dalston (sorry about the London focus here folks), crowds gather for The People’s Kitchen at Passing Clouds, to cook up a big Sunday feast together before settling in to watch a movie. Again, all the food here comes from waste, but it’s certainly not below par – there’s often a fabulous cheeseboard.
Fancy a snog?
It’s a risky business devoting an entire café to one product, but frozen yoghurt is so hip right now the gamble is paying off. Trend leaders Snog have made “going for yoghurt” one of the coolest ways to hang out with your friends this summer.
Snog follows the lead of Pinkberry in the US, dubbed “Crackberry” because of its supremely addictive qualities, which has over 100 stores and queues of celebs waiting their turn every day.
The premise is simple – each store offers a few flavours of yoghurt and a tempting selection of toppings (think exotic fruits, granola and naughty things like chocolate chips and mini Oreos) and you just choose the size, flavour and topping – and rest easy that the calorie and fat content is so low you can come back for more tomorrow!
Lucky for us, Pinkberry has just opened in the UK at Selfridges. Also look out for YooMoo, The Cultured Cow, Lick and Frae.
All aboard
There was a time when mobile cafés had all the kudos of a supermarket sandwich. Think a battered old van sat on the roadside doling out greasy grub. Now a few bright sparks have realised that being mobile can be an advantage, but the food doesn’t have to suffer.
The Pitt Cue Co. is currently parked up under London’s Hungerford Bridge, from whence it will serve up finger-lickin’, pigtastic BBQ until September. The Meatwagon has been firing up a burger storm for months and is the cool crowd’s worst kept secret - it’s always on the move though, so keep track of it online if you want a taste of the action.
The Dogfather has taken the street sausage and added a Mexican twist, Choc Star is the place to head for sweet treats, and for authentic Indian street food flag down The Everybody Lovelove Jhal Muri Express – you’ll need some sustenance after that mouthful!
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