Southgate Road cafes outlast thieves and thrive

‘The more coffee shops there are, the more people want coffee.’ Photograph: Eleonore de Bonneval

Laptop snatchers and intense competition have failed to stop the drive of London’s ubiquitous café culture into Southgate Road, part of the boundary between Islington and Hackney.

After a spell in which snatchers grabbed computers from three of the four cappuccino purveyors, says Jessica Penfold of Eggs Milk Butter (“England’s only comic book café”), cafes in the area started tweeting alerts to each other whenever thieves struck or were spotted.

The mini-epidemic has died down, leaving consumers free to get their caffeine kicks in safety.

The newest of the four, 52A Coffee House (artworks and vintage furniture, run by British-Turkish cousins Esra and Salma), suffered an added setback when a teenager on a scooter was tragically killed in a collision outside the premises in May. The flowers, written tributes and the appearance of a white ‘ghost bike’ cast a pall over the business that is only now dissipating.

Managers also have to face the usual problems of businesses in areas undergoing change. Harry Davies, founder of the De Beauvoir Deli – the leader of the pack, who is about to open a second shop in Theburton Road, Islington – recently had to evict a local character who was scooping armfulls of delicacies (“We try not to stock anything that’s in a supermarket”) into a huge canvas sack.

For Maurice Nugent of the 2 and 4 Gallery, which he started as a way of making his designer furniture shop less intimidating for passers-by, casual parenting is more of a headache, as excited children are left by relaxing parents to test the sturdiness of the stock.

The common problems for the ventures, which all offer home- or kitchen-made treats, is competition – not just from each other, but from the increasingly upmarket restaurants and pubs in Southgate Road and now from cafes in nearby streets.

Or maybe it’s not a problem.

“The more coffee shops there are, the more people want coffee,” says Penfold.

Southgate Road seems to be proving that’s true.