Food: Cafes Where You Can Make a Difference

One of the constant costs of being a Londoner is the amount we spend on hot drinks: our daily coffees, teas and now turmeric lattes soon start to tally up.

We’d all like to spend our money on something a bit more meaningful but facing Monday morning meetings without a fortifying brew is beyond even the best of us. So what if we could combine caffeine with good causes and know that our money wasn’t simply going down the beverage blackhole?

Felix Magazine has rounded up some of the cafes in London that are making a difference so that your morning coffee really counts.

Brewbird

Brewbird is using cake and coffee to challenge the public perception of ex-offenders. More than 60% of people leaving prison re-offend within a year, so this Peckham and Old Street cafe is trying to break the cycle by getting them straight into a supportive work environment. Brewbird gives ex-offenders barista, baking, management and customer service training and – most importantly – a second chance.

Set up in 2014, Brewbird is under the arm of the award-winning St Giles Trust, which works with a whole range of socially excluded people.

The cafe doesn’t hide its connection to ex-convicts but proudly makes it part of the furniture – you’ll see black and white felon stripes decorating the counter and its coffee stamp card is made up of fingerprints. On top of its good cause credentials, Brewbird’s artisan cakes and coffee are excellent.

Old Spike Roastery

This Peckham Rye roastery was set up in 2015 to use hot drinks and warm smiles tohelp fight homelessness.

Old Spike provides training, jobs and housing support to help people escape the loop of being unable to get a job because they are homeless and unable to get a home because they are jobless.

Old Spike provides a much needed link and a non-judgmental helping hand. The result is more vulnerable people off the streets and into work and specialty coffees so good that you’ll be wanting some at home.

Luckily Old Spike has just the thing: subscribe and you can have its fresh-roasted beans delivered. Now you can do good without ever having to step outside your door.

Paper & Cup

This award-winning social enterprise coffee-bookshop in East London gives training and work experience to recovering addicts and the long-term unemployed.

Paper & Cup offers them a safe environment to work, learn and meet new people. What was designed to look like any other cafe has outdone them all – not only is it a cosy book-nook with brilliant bites and coffee (try the fab chai latte) but it has such a local following that the public turn up to cafe sessions for those in recovery just to socialise.

Some of the trainees at Paper & Cup find jobs with local businesses while others have gone on to an award-winning apprenticeship with the P&C’s partner Pret a Manger, guaranteeing them a full-time job. At Paper & Cup, a treat for you creates a lifeline for others.

Cafe from Crisis

Few organisations know homelessness and vulnerability like Crisis and it’s channelled that knowledge into its award-winning cafes in Shoreditch and Finsbury Park.

Since 2004, Cafe from Crisis has provided a route into long-term hospitality work for both ex-offenders and homeless people.

The only thing better than the coffee is the food: it’s healthy, delicious and made on site by trainees who are helped with housing, CV preparation, coaching and work experience.

Better still, the cafe gets half its coffee beans from the Old Spike Roastery, another of our brilliant help-the-homeless cafes. It’s a supportive cycle that means you leave the cafe knowing that your guilty coffee has never felt so good.

by Jo Davey

The post Food: Cafes Where You Can Make a Difference appeared first on Felix Magazine.