Doe'seap Place 417 Where's the Beef
T he beginning customer of the day pushes through the door a little afterwards 7.30am. His name is Matthew. He is thin and pale and blond, and trembling a little from the cold. Sue Anayiotou, who has owned and run this buffet with her married man Chris these by 31 years, turns at the audio of the door, checks him out and turns back to me. "Homeless. I'll just be a minute."
Matthew asks for a fried egg sandwich. She offers him a cup of tea to get with it. He nods, gratefully. No money changes hands, considering no money is required. In the window is a red and white sign, designed in the early on months of the pandemic by a regular customer, which reads: "Pay it forward, donate a meal for someone who needs it". Beneath that it says: "Costless Hot Meals for anyone who cannot afford one. Merely come in and inquire." Which is what Matthew has done. "Sometimes there will exist one of them," says Sue. "Sometimes half-dozen." The customer who designed the sign also put the get-go £200 into the pot and information technology's grown from at that place. It's an accordingly dignified start to a working day at a cafe chosen the Hope.
The Promise Workers Cafe on London's Holloway Road showtime opened in 1937 and is what some people might call a greasy spoon. Those people include its owners. "Well, of course it'due south a greasy spoon," says Chris, equally he sears rashers on the hot plate for the day'due south first bacon sandwich. "It'south not a restaurant, is it?" Chris is 64. He'southward wide and stocky and salt-and-pepper stubbled, and given to blunt, mildly world-weary statements. I lookout man him cut fat off the salary with the sharp edge of his scraper, his key tool for the lengthy parade of breakfasts that volition fly out of here today. He tin flip the eggs with it, and shimmy the sausages, and nourish to the rinds. This kitchen is starting to odor securely of crisping hog and newly fried fries. It smells of all the skilful, domestic things.
Chris'due south dad, who came to Britain from a village near Larnaca in Cyprus after the war, ran some other cafe like this in Waterloo chosen the Victory. "I learned how to melt from watching him," Chris says. Somewhen he and Sue, who came to Britain in 1975, took it over but the one-bedroom flat up to a higher place was not big enough for their growing family. They heard that the building in Islington that houses the Promise was up for auction, bought information technology and took on the cafe, which came with a cook chosen George. "He'd been here for about xl years," Chris says. "He was in the kitchen and I was out front. He had teeth when he started and none when he finished." Eventually George retired and Chris moved into the kitchen.
The Hope might, at showtime glance, look like a museum piece: there's the creamware-coloured frontage and the old-school carnival font for the signage, the half wood panelling and the six-seater wooden tables with their wrought iron legs, affixed to those walls from each side. There's no Formica here. You would need to do precious little to shoot a 1940s flow drama at the Hope. But it'south not a museum piece. It's a working buffet, prized past locals non just for its bargain breakfasts, or the Greek dishes drawing on Sue and Chris'south Cypriot heritage, but for being a community hub, a third space exterior the abode. "I first came hither when my kids were babies," one of them will later tell me. "At present my children are in their 20s and they come here too."
But information technology's besides an endangered species. Thousands of these caffs accept closed in recent years. Many were opened and run by first-generation immigrants like Chris's dad, but the adjacent generation didn't e'er desire to take them over, given the hours and the precarious economic advantage. The Breakfast Club, the now 18-strong chain of hip, knowingly retro cafes may be able to charge £12 for the Greasy Spoon, its take on the full English language, hot drink actress. Hither at the Hope, the famed No 5 – it's not a real greasy spoon unless the breakfasts are numbered – costs just £half-dozen.40 for egg, bacon, sausage, chips, a fried piece, beans or tomato plant and a cup of tea or java.
Then in that location'due south the literal and figurative appetite for this sort of loftier-calorie food. Information technology'due south engineered for a kind of manual labour that few are paid to do these days. When Chris start arrived, George used to fill the ovens with hunks of pork abdomen showtime matter to serve with cabbage to the Irish builders at lunchtime. "We don't do that any more because the builders don't come." In a frothy food culture, where excitement builds over each new wave of innovation, over the inflow of live fire cooking, say, or fermentation cults, it'due south piece of cake to overlook the bright thing correct in front end of us. But ane twenty-four hour period it could be gone. And so, one chilly morn, I arrive at the Promise just before 7am in time to lookout man Sue and Chris, who drive in from Enfield, enhance the metal shutters on another day of cooked breakfasts, Greek classics and tea. Lots and lots of tea.
The primary dining room is a long space, hung with sugariness watercolours depicting Holloway Route through the ages. On the wall past the counter, now fronted by Covid-safety screens, are the blackboard menus. They used to accept printed menus only that made putting prices up tricky. "And sometimes we have to," says Chris. "Final year 20 litres of vegetable oil was £19. Now information technology's £forty."
The menus are boundless. "Yep, information technology's a long menu and I've got a long encephalon," says Chris. In that location are the six numbered breakfast options, including the veggie No 3 (swap out the eggs for bubble and squeak, to make information technology vegan). Downwardly the middle of the blackboard, it says, "No alterations please!" though there are and so many choices on the primary blackboard that it's not a problem: salary and eggs for £three.threescore, two poached eggs on toast for £ii.90, an extra fried slice for 50p.
And so there are the lunches, starting with the most expensive dish here, the mixed grill at a heady £10.90. Or there'southward the lamb chops, the lasagne or the shepherd's pie, the omelettes, jacket potatoes, sandwiches many and various and, of course, the Greek dishes that Sue was taught by her aunt: the moussaka and the fasolaki and the stuffed courgettes, and so much more. "I used to melt those at domicile and bring them in," Sue says. "Now I practise them hither." I try the moussaka for my lunch, a soothing stratum of long cooked aubergine, minced lamb and bechamel, and a hefty follow-up to the cooked breakfast I'd had a few hours before. The No 5, since you asked. It would have been rude non to.
When they started in the early 1990s there wasn't much call for meat-gratis dishes. Then, says Sue, the requests for vegan food started. "I said to my son, who'due south a trained chef, what can I exercise? He told me all the Greek things could easily be vegan." So now there's a list of those. She also has boxes of herbal teas. That'southward relatively new also. One thing stays the same. It's withal cash but. "Some bloke said he was going to the greenbacks machine to get coin," says Chris. "Never came back. Doesn't matter. Sue never forgets a face. If he comes in over again, she'll accuse him double."
To one side there's a smaller back dining room. It will remain empty today but every year the ecology health team from nearby Islington council HQ start their Christmas festivities with lunch in that location. "Nosotros get on well with ecology health," says Chris. They would accept no complaints nigh the long galley-style kitchen this morning. It's spotless. Every day at the Hope ends with the make clean down, then every mean solar day at the Promise starts like this. There's even a frying pan waiting on the gas hob, prefilled with a few centimetres of oil for the fried eggs, which are less fried than poached. Only the ones for sandwiches go on the flat height, the yolks broken with a motion-picture show of the only emptied shell, so they don't distill as well much.
Next to that is the bain-marie with cylindrical slots for the pots of peas, carrots, gravy and broiled beans. Then come the two apartment tops and, side by side to that, the deep-fat fryers. Out front, Sue butters bread for sandwiches and puts together the salads for tiffin dishes. She calls the order and shoves the plate on to the counter just inside the kitchen for Chris to finish. "We don't write anything down," Chris says. "Just keep it all in our heads. She'll shout a number for a breakfast and that's all I need." Sometimes she doesn't even demand to shout. "I see a regular come in and I know what they're having." Is it satisfying work? "It's prissy to see the plates come up back empty," he says. In the afternoon their grandson comes in to lend a hand, just nigh of the fourth dimension it really is just the two of them, parrying an countless call and response of orders, in a mixture of English and Greek.
In the first few hours of the day, the orders are anticipated, and Chris is prepare for them. Backside him are plastic boxes, filled with pre-sliced mushrooms, mash ready-mixed with cabbage for bubble and squeak and sausages that have been one-half pre-cooked and chilled, plus the hand-cut chips. "We do employ frozen chips," he says. "Numberless of them. That's what goes on the breakfasts. But I also do the hand-cut."
Out front Sam is having breakfast with his mate, Corbin. They're lads in their 20s from northern towns, 1 a designer, one an creative person. They meet here every couple of weeks. "Information technology's honest," says Sam, when asked why he comes. "In London it's difficult to discover somewhere that sticks to its values." Corbin agrees. "Sue ever looks after united states actually sweetly. It's kind of similar being dorsum home. A lot of London cafes feel like a parody of a cafe. This is just itself." They always have the aforementioned thing. "Vegetarian fix number 3 for me," says Sam. "No alterations."
Ian is in the meat merchandise and comes three or iv times a calendar week, has done for three years now. Poached eggs, bacon and toast if it's breakfast; liver and salary if its dejeuner. "It's slap-up to sit and observe," he says. "You get and then many different sorts of people." He's not wrong. At that place's Armajit, a solicitor fresh from a case in the nearby magistrates court, hither for the first time because he was taken past the buffet's proper name. He's a Jain and doesn't consume meat. "If that name ways anything they'll be able to accommodate me." Indeed they will.
There's Hank, a retired social worker, who has come hither twice a week for six years and Mercé, originally from Catalonia, who says she recognises in this very British caff and then much of the venerable cafes of Spain. It's the kind of place where many of the customers clean up their own used mugs and plates, depositing them in the plastic box at the back to salve Sue the problem. In the depths of the pandemic, when the business was at risk, those aforementioned regulars made donations and ordered takeaways to assistance them get by.
Every bit breakfast edges into lunch Tony arrives. He used to be a postman. "A very bad 1. I was a one-man spousal relationship." He's been coming for twenty years, often in a foursome with his wife, Kathy, and another couple. But Kathy died concluding yr and now he comes on his own, for the blimp courgettes or, as today, the chilli with rice, just also for the memories of their life together. "Information technology was Kathy'south favourite place to eat," Tony says, quietly. "And they're really nice people, Sue and Chris." Sue returns the compliment. "I love my customers," she says. "They're like my family." She has a small framed photograph of Kathy, perched on a shelf dorsum behind the counter. Tony's loss was theirs too.
Not that they tin e'er know every customer. "You lot should exist here on match day," Chris says. "It'due south mad so." The Arsenal ground is only a short walk away and the Hope is where many people kickoff. So I pop back one Sat, when Arsenal are playing Brighton. From noon onwards the queue is stacking upward towards the door and out on to the street like a losing game of Tetris, and both dining rooms are full. Chris is no longer cooking to club. He just keeps a constant stream of breakfast ingredients going with the assist of his son, as well chosen Chris. And at present he's writing things down. "I take to," he says. "No other style." He lists what they get through on a match day: 300 eggs and 10kg of bacon, five 2.6kg catering tins of baked beans and 40kg of chips. There's a pot washer in today, plus another pair of easily out front.
Dorsum at the Promise on that normal week day, it'southward quieter at present, as the lunch merchandise slips downwards a gear. Business concern has suffered since the pandemic. "Before Covid it was always busy, all the time," says Sue. "Now, y'all just don't know." She also admits that, at 65, she has had enough. "She wants to stop," Chris says. "This job does your hands in and your knees. And so, we're up for sale. Merely what would I practice if I retired? I don't have hobbies." Non peachy on golf game then? He laughs. "I'g Greek. Nosotros gamble." Plus, there's the knotty business of finding a buyer for the Hope. What will it become then?
Closing time is 5pm but from effectually 3.30pm he is cleaning down. (On a normal day they'd likewise exist prepping food simply they did double yesterday, because they knew I was coming.) The floor is cleaned, the flat acme scoured, the stove polished. Tucked away in a corner is a supermarket trolley, which Chris uses for taking out the rubbish, 1 in a series he has used for the job. He constitute the get-go one out by the lamp-post on the adjourn. "There's frequently a supermarket trolley out there," he says, nodding towards the Holloway Road. The neighbourhood provides.
Around iv.30pm Sue is sweeping the dining room floor when a customer turns up wanting breakfast. Does Chris always get exasperated when people arrive so shut to closing? "Grade not. I'yard not here for fun. I'm here to brand money." But before long they'll have cleared their plate, similar all the others who have eaten here today. The gas will be turned off. The chief switch for the kitchen electrics volition be flicked. The shutters volition come up downwardly. It volition be the end of another 24-hour interval at the Hope Workers Cafe.
The Hope Workers Cafe, 111 Holloway Rd, London N7 8LT
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/may/22/the-greasy-spoon-chronicles-a-day-in-the-life-of-the-hope-workers-cafe
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