Eleanor Crow’s Cafes
Years have passed since we first featured Eleanor Crow’s beautiful watercolours in these pages and Spitalfields Life Books is now publishing a handsome hardback collection of them SHOPFRONTS OF LONDON, In Praise of Small Neighbourhood Shops in collaboration with Batsford Books.
You can preorder to support publication and you will receive a signed copy in the first week of September. Click here to preorder for £14.99
An exhibition of Eleanor’s watercolours opens at Townhouse Spitalfields on 3rd October.
Eleanor will giving an illustrated lecture at Wanstead Tap on Wednesday 9th October, showing her pictures and telling the stories of the shops. Click here for tickets
Syd’s Coffee Stall, Shoreditch High St
Eleanor made this set of watercolour portraits of cafes as a tribute to those cherished institutions which incarnate the essence of civility in the East End. “It’s because they’re individual concerns, often owned by families across generations who get to know all their customers,” admitted Eleanor, revealing the source of her devotion to cafe culture ,“I like the frontages because each is designed uniquely for that café with wonderful sign-writing or lettering and eye-catching colours. Some of these cafés have been here for a very long time and everyone in the area is familiar with them, and is very fond of them. They make the streets into a better place and are landmarks upon the landscape of the East End.”
E. Pellicci, Bethnal Green Rd
Savoy, Norton Folgate
Time for Tea, Shoreditch High St
Dalston Lane Cafe
Paga Cafe, Lea Bridge Rd
Lennies Snack Bar, Calvert Avenue
Marina Cafe, Mare St
Kingsland Cafe, Kingsland Rd
Grab & Go, Blackhorse Lane
Gina’s Restaurant, Bethnal Green Rd
Copper Grill, Eldon St
Billy Bunter’s Snack Bar, Mile End Rd
Beppe’s Cafe, West Smithfield
B.B. Cafe, Lea Bridge Rd
Savoy Cafe, Graham Rd
A.Gold, Brushfield St
Arthur’s Cafe, Kingsland Rd
Cafe Bliss, Dalston Lane
Cafe Rodi, Blackhorse Lane
Rossi Restaurant, Hanbury St (Gone but not forgotten)
Eleanor Crow at E.Pellicci
Drawings copyright © Eleanor Crow
Portrait copyright © Colin O’Brien
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At Regis Cafe, Leadenhall Market
At Syd’s Coffee Stall, Shoreditch High St
CLICK HERE TO ORDER A SIGNED COPY FOR £14.99
At a time of momentous change in the high street, Eleanor’s witty and fascinating personal survey champions the enduring culture of Britain’s small neighbourhood shops.
As our high streets decline into generic monotony, we cherish the independent shops and family businesses that enrich our city with their characterful frontages and distinctive typography.
Eleanor’s collection includes more than hundred of her watercolours of the capital’s bakers, cafés, butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers, chemists, launderettes, hardware stores, eel & pie shops, bookshops and stationers. Her pictures are accompanied by the stories of the shops, their history and their shopkeepers – stretching from Chelsea in the west to Bethnal Green and Walthamstow in the east.
I can feel a Full English coming on… (no mushrooms please but extra tomatoes if poss) with a nice cuppa builder’s tea – yum!
These individual cafes are so much nicer and friendlier than the coffee shop chains – long may they continue to serve their communities…
It’s nice to see these institutions recognised and in some cases now, remembered. This book and these pictures will hopefully give them a life beyond their service.