London is coffee city for sure. There is no major high street here without multiple chain coffee shops like Costa or Cafe Nero. Those are my two favourite chain cafes by the way. I can't pick which is better - I go back and forth.
Even better, and more plentiful, are the one-off, non-chain coffee shops that are dotted all over the city. Some parts of London have more than others with East London being the clear leader in that. West London is a close second with Central London coming in as number 3. Having said that, all the other parts of London probably have more cafes regionally than in entire cities elsewhere.
For example, in North London, there are Camden, Islington and Finsbury Park. These are coffee heavens, especially when it comes to bespoke and artisan coffee shops. Islington kind of straddles both East and North London and is right next to the legendary coffee land of Shoreditch, East London. The great coffee shops of Islington are probably a spillover from neighbouring East London.
The cafe I'm posting about today is located in Finsbury Park, North London. It is by far one of my favourite cafes in the city. It's located in a recently gentrified part of town, surrounded by new residential constructions. The road itself had long been known for fruit and veg shops as well as Afro-Caribbean barber shops. In fact, I used to get my hair cut in the area way back in the day.
Crisis is not your regular cafe. It's both a coffee shop, and a second hand goods and clothing shop. All the proceeds from the sales of donated items, as well as the cafe, go to the worthy cause of ending homelessness. It's an apt cause, since Finsbury Park boasts of some of the highest cases of homelessness in the country. Until recently when they were cleared out by the authorities, many homeless people could be seen camped out under the train bridge and in all the street corners. Some of the empty buildings were also occupied by squatters.
Homelessness is not pleasant for anyone, neither for the homeless nor the people that have to put up with the effects of having a large homeless population in their neighbourhood. I used to live in one of such neighbourhoods and it certainly wasn't nice. Our block of flats was constantly breached by drug addicts that used our stairwell for the most disgusting things imaginable.
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Nevertheless, most people are not homeless by choice. People would rather have the security of a roof over their heads with daily meals and clean clothes. Rather than just displacing the homeless by moving them from one place to another like the government does, organisations like Crisis are trying to reduce and eventually eliminate the root cause of homelessness. It is always nice, when I'm there, to know that not only is the coffee going to satisfy my urge, it's also going to a good cause.
There is an outdoor area so, in theory, I could go work there now already with my laptop. I would have to travel on London Underground, however, a thing that I'm still avoiding. Having said that, I could end up on that road soon since I desperately need a haircut. I could kill two birds with one stone.
Peace & Love,
Adé
