Leader: Clissold Park cafe ‘posh’ nosh row

Recently reopened eatery The House has been criticised as overly expensive. Image: Hackney Council
Controversy has marred the council’s flagship refurbishment of Hackney’s most famous green space, Clissold Park.
This has taken the form of somewhat predictable debates over the new facilities such as the skate park, but it has also centred on the deaths of three of the park zoo’s deer — two from dog attacks and the third from ‘shock’ — which took place as the work was ongoing.
Now anger has flared over the newly restored café in Clissold House, with an unprecedented number of readers leaving passionate comments on the matter on this newspaper’s website.
The gist of many of these contributions is that the café is too fancy and overpriced — the kind of place more suited to the rarefied streets of Hampstead than down-to-earth Hackney.
No one can deny that our borough, and in particular Stoke Newington, has become progressively more middle class in recent years, but the old guard lives on despite the preponderance of hipsters, and the Town Hall should have seen this disharmony brewing early last year when it effectively barred local traders from competing for the contract to run the café in decreeing that only companies with an annual turnover of £1 million or more could have a pop.
Far from a storm in a teacup, this row is indicative of the way some residents feel they are being priced out of their own neighbourhoods. The glib argument that our borough is much like anywhere else, and that gentrification will continue unimpeded until Hackney becomes Islington and Waltham Forest becomes Hackney, is belied by the sheer force of opposition.
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assessing popular opinion on any topic by looking at the comments on a newspaper website is not very scientific. the cafe seems pretty busy which would tell another story. the truth is p0robably somewhere in between. “really lovely building and nice food but probably need to change the menu a bit and offer some more affordable food and drink as part of a wide offer “is probably the view of most people. but reasonable, balanced views aren;t something you find on most newspaper website comment pages
Thruppence, I’ll be interested to see where this goes but it seems like the kind of market failure we’ve already seen before and will see far of as more privatisation is forced on a resisting public. The problem with private sector provision is that there is no incentive to offer a better deal to poorer people unless it makes more profit for the company. It’s likely that Clissold Park will broaden its menu to include cheaper options but also likely that even the cheaper options will look like poor value for money to those on average to lower incomes. The service provider will seek to maximise its profits from rich and poor alike. That’s how the market works, it’s all about profits, not people.
so they price to a point that utilisation of tables (or lack therefore) is offset by the margins made on the food and the coffee. The majority of the people using the cafe are likely to be local. So if the cafe is full, it is probably the right price point.
If the cafe now lowers the price, the cafe may become too crowded and reduce the enjoyment of it.
As marketfailure points out that maximises profits – and excludes people who dont want to pay that price – however that is not a market failure, it is the market working. The council now either needs to charge the right rent and address the perecieved lack of equality.
Clissold food/coffee stamps perhaps?
Well how much are the prices actually e.g. for a latte
Del
you are right… “it is not a market failure, it is the market working. The council now either needs to charge the right rent and address the perecieved lack of equality”.
This is a failure of planning as the market is just a system of measuring demand, not a moral system of right or wrong, good or bad. Good planning would have split the cafe into 2, premium waiter service at one end and mass sef service at the other. One high volume low margin and the other low volume high margin.
The market is a measuring machine and cannot be “right” or “wrong” and in this case it has measured the amount of wealthy people in Stokey.
What the market is useless at doing is measuring the value of a social function. In this case, keeping local people using the facilities and becoming a more democratic public space was possible and should easily have been sustainably profitable too.
@hoxtonruler A pot of tea for one is £1.65. Coffees are similar. Sandwiches (focaccis) are around £3.50. These are the prices in the table service area.
Also, many products are fairtrade, which also pushes the prices up, but personally I don’t mind paying extra to know that the people who produce the tea, coffee, etc. get paid properly.
Many of the comments seem to focus on the type of food served, not so much the actual prices, and a perception that some food is ‘posher’ than other types. Once-upon-a-time chips and baked potatoes were probably ‘posh’ too! (Anyway I’m sure the New River caf on the edge of the park will do well out of those discontent with the cafe.)
Hi Hackney Citizen,
thanks for your article…
I feel quite upset that the cafe is no longer catering for the whole local community. It would be much better if a mug of tea was £1 not £1.75 a pot or for a paper cup takeaway..Then far more people would stop for a cuppa.
When my son was growing up baked potatoes, salad, beans and cheese was a staple and about the equivalent of £4. It was good, healthy and cheap. The cafe then was the only place where we could take our kids(they would run off and we had the vantage point for them to come back too) and a place that many people could afford. Or at least afford something..
Why has Hackney Council chosen a corporate caterer who clearly have no relationship to the local area? Where Kenwood is self service (another Company Of Cooks outlet) this adds on a service charge…(unless you sit outside, downstairs and ’round the back!).
And everyone knows that lots of parents (who use the park a lot) and other people, are struggling financially at the moment, so the need to keep the cafe a cheaper community cafe is greater than ever.
Del – ‘if the cafe is full, it is probably the right price point’ – the price point could quite easily be right for the business without being right for the majority of people who use the park. I’m sure that there are plenty of wealthy people in the area who aren’t particularly price sensitive, nevertheless, they are still a minority in relation to the wider community.
Blame it on the council and bad planning if you like but since, as notmarketfailure points out markets are just exceptionally narrow kinds of measuring machines, it is surely time to end the fiction that markets are best left to their own devices. There are no markets in this sense, only human agents who enter into market relations, which turn out in real life to be social and political relations as well. If those human agents make a habit of thinking like exceptionally narrow measuring machines, and transfer this type of thinking into all sorts of inappropriate spheres, we are all diminished as a result. Market failure is not when markets fail, it’s when people who operate within market relations fail to acknowledge that thinking like a narrow measuring machine isn’t good enough.
i pass via cafe most days and have been having a nose to see who is using it
the “clientele” are now almost exclusively mid thirties white middle class mums – nothing wrong with them but a whole demographic range who used to use this cafe in a public park have disappeared
old, working class, non whites, care in the community, eccentrics and the middle class and children of all backgrounds used to be seen using the cafe
it is not just about pricing and menu it is also the projected ambience which deters all but a part of the community from what should be a resource for all
@Nimrod87: one day, every suburb will be like Muswell Hill! 😉
We just to the cafe, its really cheap and nice, sunny, spacious, pretty good coffee, friendly service. I can’t believe people think its expensive! Compared to all the cafes on Church st it’s a bargin.
Hi there
BBC London 94.9’s Drivetime is looking into the cafe story – I’d be most grateful if any of you who are willing to put your heads above the parapet could drop me your contact details – anna.oneill@bbc.co.uk
Await with interest an independent and unbiased report from the BBC, NOT!
Well…. I’m a middle class mum and I’ve visited the new cafe…. and it was b******. It wasn’t even the price that bothered me: it was that there was nothing on the menu my kids could eat. The sandwiches were all fancy kinds of this blended with that. I asked if they had an ordinary ham or cheese sandwich but the food was pre-mixed and this was not possible. The waitress service was slow (I had to get up to order). And there were also wailing children – including one who went on for ten minutes like a burglar alarm. We abandoned our order in the end and went to a cafe on the high street which does toasted cheese sandwiches and baked potatoes. I miss the temporary cafe that was set up in Clissold during the building works (chips and ketchup). Much better for kids. Much better for everyone.
Hmm, “more suited to the rarefied streets of Hampstead than down-to-earth Hackney”
Not sure about that.
We just moved out of Hackney, further north towards Hampstead, and actually find it to be much better value. Compared to Stoke Newington (some of) the cafés are much cheaper, and the rent, believe it or not, seems much better value for money. We couldn’t move within Hackney because we just couldn’t afford to. Now we’re in Parliament Hill. Try working that one out…