Second hand furniture, fresh homemade food and drink and a welcoming, ‘living room’ atmosphere are just a few things that Camberwell’s The Pigeon Hole café is gaining a reputation for.
Opened in mid-2014 by two former theatre students, George Ellison and Holly Steidl, and tucked away, just off the chaotic Camberwell Church Street, The Pigeon Hole combines a friendly, local café with second hand furniture dealer.
The co-owner, George Ellison takes pride in her business’s restoration and rehoming of discarded furniture and wants the interior of her café to be constantly changing.
“The idea was a nice, local café that sold as much local produce or locally produced artwork in the space. Everything, all the furniture’s for sale, in the café. So, that’s nice because the space keeps on rotating, and it kind of changes up every season really. The idea of doing something very routine based, like a café, seemed a bit daunting, so it’s nice for us to be able to keep on redesigning the space.”
Ellison says that for her a ‘clean, calm laid-back’ atmosphere in the café is crucial.
“I think it’s very important that people feel they can come in by themselves and have a quiet time or if they want to have a chat with someone, they can, so we try and offer that up. There’s no agenda, there’s no pretentiousness or anything. I hope everyone just feels really chilled out here.”
As a 10-year Camberwell resident, Ellison believes that Camberwell’s diverse community helps to keep running a local café exciting.
“I like the community feel. Doing this, we’ve met so much more of the community. Everyone feels very strongly about Camberwell, which is great and I like how diverse the community is, there’s a lot going on here now. It’s got its own character. I hope it won’t change too much.”
The variety of uses people find for her café helps to keep it evolving, she believes.
“It’s changing constantly, we get a lot of free-lancers, we used to get a lot of people of 30+, but now it’s coming down, more students are coming in now. A lot of creative types. A lot of people who just want a nice space to sit and work for a little bit, and we’re really up for that because that’s what we used to do. It’s lovely”
“It’s really nice to meet people who are doing all sorts of different stuff, from all sorts of different backgrounds. When you have a chat with them you find out that actually there’s loads of stuff happening in Camberwell, which is really nice.”
Ellison says that she wants The Pigeon Hole to support Camberwell wherever possible, be it through supporting a local network of businesses or by trying to make her café one of Camberwell’s many social hubs.
“Around here there are really great producers and suppliers and I think it’s really important to support other local, independent businesses. We’ve got some really good ones locally, so it’s nice to give them the support. I think that’s what keeps the character and creativity of places like this alive.”
Ellison makes sure the Pigeon Hole is never short of character and creativity, with an array of events every few days. From speed dating to life drawing, free film screening, to ring sculpting, the variety of events at The Pigeon Hole matches its constantly evolving theme and Ellison believes that these kinds of events are important to ‘bring people together’.
