Cereal Killer Cafe

Cereal Killer Cafe was a café situated on Brick Lane in Spitalfields[1], London that served branded breakfast cereals. It was the first cereal-themed café in the United Kingdom.[2] It announced its closure on 8 July 2020 as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic[3].

Cereal Killer Cafe
Café
FateClosed
Founded2014 (2014)
FounderAlan and Gary Keery
Headquarters
East End, London, Dubai, Doha
,
England
Number of locations
5
Websitecerealkillercafe.co.uk

Development

Identical twins Alan and Gary Keery, from Belfast, came up with the idea of selling breakfast cereal after experiencing a morning hangover during a lunch break in Shoreditch and craving a "sugary cereal fix".[4] The brothers were initially dissuaded from pursuing the project but continued after conducting their own market research. Inspired by established cereal cafes in the United States and the premise of the 2007 film Flakes, they went about asking consumers on the streets whether or not they would buy into the concept.[5] They discovered that more than half of the people they had asked would consider visiting their cafe. Funding for the proposal came from a business loan following an unsuccessful £60,000 crowdfunding attempt on Indiegogo.[6] They found it difficult to rent a location based on their business venture but eventually settled on an old video store.[7][8]

By 2017 the brothers had opened cereal cafes in Camden, Birmingham and Kuwait.[9] The Camden Market location features a retro vibe, complete with beds used as seating around tables.[10]

Business
The interior of the Brick Lane branch

The two-storey café is situated on Brick Lane, near Shoreditch, and employs eight staff. The interior is designed to reflect a retro style with exposed brickwork, formica furniture and 1980s and '90s music. Among the decor are novelty cereal boxes, vintage milk bottles and other cereal related memorabilia.[11] The cafe offers more than 100 different varieties of global cereal brands, 12 kinds of milk and 20 toppings. It also sells coffee, toast and poptarts.[12]

The owners were challenged by Channel 4 over the price of their bowls of cereal in Tower Hamlets, a London borough with relatively high rates of poverty.[13] The interview went viral, with reactions on social media portraying the Keery brothers as "out of touch hipsters". Traditional media commentary defended the small business, supporting their entrepreneurship and pointing at gentrification around Shoreditch.[14][15] In response, the brothers wrote an open letter to the broadcaster on Twitter.[16] Boris Johnson also wrote in his Telegraph column in defence of their enterprise.[17]

gollark: Maybe.
gollark: Or, well, Cython is slow.
gollark: I wouldn't really call Python fast, IIRC the global interpreter lock makes it mostly single threaded.
gollark: What would you say is fast and intuitive, and intuitive and simple?
gollark: It's a shame there's no way to make that show a different thing depending on who looks at it. Though I guess I could do that with my website.

See also

References
  1. https://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/Documents/Planning-and-building-control/Strategic-Planning/Neighbourhood-Planning/Spitalfields_v9_Officer_Rec_Area.pdf
  2. Petroff, Alanna (9 December 2014). "London's first cereal cafe milks nostalgia". CNN. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  3. "A sad Cheerio". us12.campaign-archive.com. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  4. Malone, Ailbhe (17 May 2014). "There Could Be A Cereal Cafe Coming To London Soon". Buzzfeed. Retrieved 13 December 2014.
  5. Brown, Brigid (5 November 2014). "WATCH: First Cereal Cafe Opens in East London". BBC America. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  6. Rucki, Alexandra (17 May 2014). "Cereal café could be coming to Shoreditch if crowdfunding campaign is success". Evening Standard. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  7. Jefferies, Henry (9 December 2014). "Can the Cereal Killer cafe, which sells only cereal, really make a killing?". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  8. Bell, Stephanie (21 November 2014). "Cereal Killer Cafe: Belfast brothers open UK's first ever cafe selling nothing but cereal". Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  9. http://felixonline.co.uk/articles/2017-11-24-worth-the-hype-cereal-killer-cafe/
  10. "Camden Market | Cereal Killer Cafe - London". www.cerealkillercafe.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2018-02-07. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
  11. Barrie, Joshua (9 December 2014). "Have A Look Inside The UK's First Breakfast Cereal Cafe". Business Insider. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  12. Jones, Rachel (4 November 2014). "UK's first cereal café to open in London". The Telegraph. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  13. Molloy, Antonia (11 December 2014). "Cereal Killer cafe owner cuts short interview after he is grilled about his prices". The Independent. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
  14. Chakelian, Anoosh (12 December 2014). "In defence of the Cereal Killer café: why lazy hipster-bashing won't solve inequality". New Statesman. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  15. Hardman, Isabel (11 December 2014). "In defence of the smug Cereal Café owners – and the mugs who eat there". The Spectator. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  16. Moore, Suzanne (15 December 2014). "Cereal Killer cafe is just a symptom of gentrification, not the cause". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 December 2014.
  17. Johnston, Boris (15 December 2014). "Don't murder the Cereal Killers – we need people just like them". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 19 December 2014.

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