[Lifestyle] Inside Britain’s tiniest places: ‘It’s an engineering work of art … with coffee’

[FRIDAY THE 13]

Kiosk coffee shop and cocktail bar, Manchester
Kiosk, in Didsbury, Manchester: a cupboard converted into a coffee shop and cocktail bar
It’s become a pram and dog walkers’ drive-through’

As bricks-and-mortar coffee and cocktail stops go, a 4 sq metre (43 sq ft) cupboard conversion between a post office and a wine bar is an ingenious use of space. Kiosk’s bubblegum-pink front, in the Didsbury area of Manchester, serves as a hatch into a 1 metre x 3 metre (39in x 118in) space that was originally set to house the stairs to owner Jemma O’Brien’s first-floor flat.

“It’s become a pram drive-through and dog walkers’ drive-through,” says O’Brien, 33, of the business she dreamed up during a lockdown spent “alone, on my arse and on universal credit”. Now the microspot, in a suburban Victorian shopping arcade, is beloved for its charm and some of the city’s best independent coffee and pastries.

“Loads of locals helped me put it together,” O’Brien says. “A dad who used to be an aeroplane engineer, his wife who’s a town planner, and a friend who’s an architect. People think it’s just Instagrammable, then they look closer and see it’s actually an engineering work of art with brilliant coffee.”

 

There’s really only space for one punter inside this micropub at Claygate station in the commuter town of Esher, which has a 30cm x 38cm (12in x 18in) bar and makes fine use of a former coal ordering office. Landlord Alex Coomes (pictured) opened it in 2015 as a kerb-side pickup for the Brightwater ales brewed in his garage down the road, but the space quickly turned into a tightly packed brewery tap, with the odd guest beer.

Drinking takes place almost exclusively outside the pub, and with glasses banned by the council, the 55 regulars have pewter tankards (labelled with their names) hanging on hooks inside. Others sip their ales from compostable cups or take them home in milk cartons. The food menu extends to local sausage rolls, baked in a small, shelf-top oven. “You have to be organised and ruthless about the space you allocate,” says Coomes, 56. “You can only carry so much stock.”

The pub, on the Guildford line into Waterloo, is open from March until Christmas, with a gazebo for dreary days. “We get a lot of commuter traffic. There’s one group that comes up from Cobham every Friday, to go to a nearby curry house, and stops here for a drink. It’s a great community pub, too. Customers have become good friends and older people use it as somewhere to meet,” Coomes says. “One chap sits with his little boy who is obsessed with trains, and recently a train driver who does our line stopped by for a pint.”

link: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jul/07/inside-britains-tiniest-places-its-an-engineering-work-of-art-with-coffee