Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Tesco-backed “artisan coffeehouse” brews up trouble in Crouch End
The Harris + Hoole brand could be landing in Crouch End soon.
Crouch End seems poised to get something like its twentieth coffee shop as news has leaked out that Tesco-backed “artisan coffeehouse” Harris + Hoole could open on the Broadway
Apparently the new chain is eying up a number of former Clinton Cards premises around the country including the one next to Starbucks in central Crouch End.
It's a fascinating story both for the local reaction it seems to have provoked and for the insight it offers of how local high streets are surviving.
If the local feelings portrayed by one of the local newspapers tells the whole story, Crouch End is not at all happy about this latest development. It seems that for some, this is just one froth merchant too many
Feyzan Ulker, who opened My Kind Of Coffee just a year ago, was quoted as saying
“I think we are special, we are a step further on than those kind of places, but there is not enough business – it is too much.”
“I do not know what their strategy will be, but if they are trying to kill smaller businesses like us, I am going to do something.”
Cllr David Winskill was also dubious. He said:
“Crouch End is really lucky with the range of local and family-run coffee shops in the town centre. They really bring a lot to Crouch End life but with nearly 10 per cent of our shop fronts selling coffee we must ask the question, have we reached saturation point?”
My Kind of Coffee and chain artisan bakery/coffee shop Gail's both opened within the last eighteen months and I don't remember any negative reaction to either of them. So what's the story here? Is it that Crouch End just feels like it's reached saturation point or do certain brands just have the power to invoke particular reactions in certain places.
Whatever the case may be, with high streets threatened up and down the country, there does seem to be a certain trade off required to keep a high street alive. It's not hard to see that successful high streets are becoming much more entertainment focussed rather than places to buy day to day necessities. Often that entertainment quotient also needs to specialise. In Harringay, Green Lanes, has been fashioned as a place for London's Turkish population to socialise, eat and shop. In Crouch End it's coffee shops.
Styling high streets to suit our particular wishes is a tough one. I'm not sure how possible or desirable it is. in the meantime, I accept that I live in an area with high street that's far less diverse than I'd like. But take a trip to Willesden, where house prices are higher than in Harringay and in the depressing high street you'll see one of the alternatives. So, until I've mastered the trick of waving my magic wand to create the Disneyfied high street of my dreams, I'll carry on enjoying the cornucopia of great fruit and veg, baklava and Turkish food on offer at the end of my road.
I hope Crouch End can live at peace with its twentieth coffee shop. If it all gets too much, of course they're welcome to join us for baklava and çay.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by James R Grinter on
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Having just gone to look at who is actually running the company- its the family who run Taylor St Baristas- I'd be very welcoming as they know how to make a good cup of coffee, and how to teach others to do so.
(Unlike most coffee chains, and many independents, who serve some really awful stuff)
My disappointments are that they're not using their existing Taylor Street
name, and that it's going to be in Crouch End instead of the coffee deprived N15/17
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Permalink Reply by Davidfp1 on
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Chains sell poor quality, cheap coffee - cheap for them to buy anyway - and they force down the price farmers receive for their crop, even at fair trade prices. This chain will be no different, even though it is marketed as artisan. There are some very good independents that stock coffee from specialty providers like www.hasbean.co.uk or www.squaremilecoffee.com - they sell exceptional coffee which is often direct trade so farmers and co-ops getting a living (not subsistence fair trade) rate for their product.
Coffee shops that use these coffee roasters usually also make great coffee because not only is the product quality but by the very fact they use good beans, they know what they're doing and care about what their customers drink, not how much they can make at the lowest unit price.
Better yet, buy yourself an aeropress (www.aeropresscoffee.co.uk) and some ethopean kebel kercha sidamo from hasbean and enjoy amazing coffee at home! Or if you want warm milk with a dash of cheap, burnt coffee, go to a chain; they only thrive because we let them. Life's too short for bad coffee!
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Permalink Reply by Geoff on
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Never mind Crouch End where the likes of Coffee Cake and Haberdashery fly the flag for great independent coffee houses, let's look at Green Lanes where frankly it would be no bad thing if a reasonable chain coffee shop opened up, to encourage some diversity in the trading profile, which is limited in some ways, and is, generally not what could be termed inclusive. If we can't yet get the likes of Fresh & Wild (organic/wholefood) to take a punt on Harringay Green Lanes, to open up opportunities, encourage trading diversity and innovation which would appeal to the broader constituency that the area is now attracting, then this kind of business would be a good start, despite the inevitable objections that some would raise in knee-jerk response! Kevin at Moka is doing a fantastic job for the Wightman Road/Haringey Station/Stroud Green locality and the recently mentioned possibility of a Repair Café is also interesting. To push the area forwards and to envigorate the high street, we need more independent enterprises with vision and a smattering of different kinds of chains that would not be out of place on Green Lanes.
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Permalink Reply by Abi on
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Absolutely, Billy. I thought I was the only one secretly pleased that we were getting a Sainsbury's (I say 'we', I shop in Green Lanes most weekends anyway but the cash point issue is a biggie around here) for exactly the reasons you describe. And I love my local independent store - I just can't easily shop there without cash.
Having to walk to Seven Sisters station to get cash out without being charged by some dodgy in-store machine is frankly, a drag.
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Permalink Reply by Hugo Read on
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There's a big difference between a new chain and a genuinely independent place like My Kind of Coffee - it's not even comparable. It's not just about saturation point, it's about another identikit chain shop vs a true artisan independent that offers something extra and not out of the coffee shop cookie cutter set. My Kind source their own beans, of the highest quality and then (as you know Hugh) roast their own coffee. As someone who makes coffee at home with a decent grinder and espresso machine I can attest their beans are the best I've ever bought and I'll travel there to get them. It's not just another coffee shop, but it could be killed by endless chain coffee shops, which are all pretty much the same and not on the same level. I went into My Kind about a month ago and had a flat white, which was so excellent that you couldn't even talk about it in the same breath as the chain coffee places. I could also have an intelligent conversation with the boss about his beans and roasting, which is something that I obviously couldn't and wouldn't want to do in a chain. I think you should differentiate a genuine artisan place from one that purports to be one, like the new Tesco's backed chain.
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Well said Hugo. It's arrived...
On a purely aesthetic level I approve (it looks better than Clinton's anyway
)But I for one won't be going and am going to take myself elsewhere this weekend
http://m.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/aug/08/tesco-coffee-shops-har...
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