Subsidence brings silver lining... and wood burner

A SUBURBAN cafe is creating an expanded coffee lounge with a snug log-burning stove after being forced to undergo emergency building work because their building was slowly collapsing.

- ANDY PHILLIPS

Cobblers and Coffee on the corner of Beaumont Road and Rosebery Avenue in St Jude's is turning 'lemons into lemonade' by using the opportunity created by the remedial work to expand their existing seating area and installing a real fire where their coffee machine used to stand.

The cafe has managed to stay open despite the work, but has been forced to relocate into an outbuilding at the back of their premises which they have called The Boot Room.

But the cost of the work has soared as builders working on behalf of the insurance company judged that simply underpinning the front wall, which was collapsing as its foundations had been eroded by subsidence, would not be sufficient.