The menu at Cafe Pier features toast with jam and butter, focaccia sandwiches and even natural wines
Cafe Pier, a tiny new cafe on the north bank of the Thames in Chelsea, has an enviable location. Sitting at one of its handful of tables, you can look out across the river to Albert Bridge and Battersea Park, and beyond that to the revitalised London landmark Battersea Power Station. Dog walkers and couples stop by for coffee and toasted sandwiches, while joggers on the river path look on enviously as they pant past.
For most of its history, however, the building’s priorities lay in the other direction, on the main road. This is one of London’s historic cabmen’s shelters, the little huts dotted throughout the city to offer places for taxi drivers to stop, freshen up and get something to eat and drink. This one had fallen into disuse in recent decades, since the road became a red route and cabs could no longer park there while their drivers got their tea and sarnies. It has been revived by Melis Kurum, who has a day job in restaurant PR, and her friend Cem Kemahli.
‘We first spotted it on lockdown walks,’ she says. ‘So we’ve been thinking about it for a couple of years. We looked into it and found out that it was owned by the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund, so we reached out to them and they explained why it had closed. We were excited to put it back into public use.’
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