17 July 2010

Myatt's Field's new cafe


News
Myatt's Field's new cafe
Friday, 16 July 2010
From left, Lindsay Avebury, Debbie Charles, Roger Bickerstaff and 
Victoria Sherwin
From left, Lindsay Avebury, Debbie Charles, Roger Bickerstaff and Victoria Sherwin
A NEW cafe is now serving up dishes made from fruit and veg grown in a community’s shared greenhouse.
The Little Cat Cafe started serving customers five afternoons a week last week in Myatt’s Field Park, Kennington.
It is planned that most of the produce used in the cafe will come from the park’s community greenhouse, where volunteers have been growing fruit and vegetables since February.
Lindsay Avebury, chairwoman of Myatt’s Fields Park Project Group (MFPPG), said:
“When we’ve asked people what they want in the park, a cafe always came out as a top request.
“We are very excited that after a year of running the cafe just on Sundays we are now in a position to open five days a week.
“We hope that everyone who lives around the park will use the cafe as somewhere to meet up with friends.
“We also hope that as the business grows we will be able to open full-time.”
It will be run by a manager and assistant paid for by Lambeth council’s First Future Jobs Fund – a £2million Government-funded scheme aimed at creating 355 new jobs in the borough for 18- to 24-year-olds at risk of long-term unemployment.
The cafe will run as a non-profit-making social enterprise, meaning that all profits are returned to the business.
The venue is named after the Minet Family – Minet means little cat in French.
The family who owned the land now known as Myatt’s Field Park in the 1700s later gifted it to the area to be used as a park.
The new venture is run by MFPPG – a charity set up in 2002 to manage the £3million regeneration of the park.
The park’s regeneration has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Lambeth council.
Residents held a party to celebrate the opening of the cafe with South American music and barbecue on Saturday.
Email: nadia.gilani@slp.co.uk
http://www.southlondonpress.co.uk/tn/news.cfm?id=25584

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