Patriotic cafes attacked for ‘evoking Empire’
Chain’s Churchill mural vandalised and petition launched in protest at its Indian-themed branch
WHEN Chris Evans set out to establish a chain of patriotic cafés in 2013, he hoped the venture would bring Londoners together in their love of Britain, the Commonwealth and Churchill.
But now the Blighty Commonwealth of Cafés has come under attack from Labour activists, who claim one of the colourfully decorated cafés “insensitively evokes memory of the Empire” and launched a petition against it.
Mr Evans was forced to remove a mural of Winston Churchill from his Finsbury Park Blighty UK branch because it was repeatedly daubed with graffiti branding the wartime prime minister “scum” and an “imperialist”.
His second branch, the Blighty India Café in Haringey, is the subject of a petition that has been sent to David Lammy, the Labour MP, The campaign was started by Ewa Lefmann and Zainab Khan, Labour party members, and Jasmine Davies, who claim that the café makes “many in the community feel uncomfortable”.
They add that Mr Evans “has made little attempt to tastefully or sensitively celebrate India in its Tottenham branch”.
“It is adorned with Hindi and a neon Ghandi. The owners are not Indian, and the food is not Indian, but British with an Indian ‘twist’ – which frankly many Indians would find offensive,” the complainants write. “It is a garish, colonial view of India, stereotyped and built for English consumption.” Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Ms Khan, whose family moved from India in the Sixties, said the café, which opened last year, “ignores the suffering the Empire caused and turns colonial rule into a frivolous theme”.
“We’re not asking them to shut down, just to rethink their theme and its impact on residents,” she added. There is no suggestion that those behind the petition were involved in the vandalism of the Churchill mural.
The Blighty UK café, which also features a Churchill sculpture and a model spitfire suspended from the ceiling, was the first step in Mr Evans’s ambition to establish 52 cafés – one for each member country of the Commonwealth. Its breakfast menu includes a signature dish known as The Winston, a traditional full English; and The Gandhi, a vegan alternative, while the Indian café offers cocktails such as the Bombay Sunrise.
The cafés both use coffee beans sourced from Commonwealth members Kenya and Tanzania, with Time Out magazine describing the chain as a “community minded coffee house”.
Defending his choice of decor, Mr Evans said that he had wanted to celebrate a “true British hero … and the ties between Britain and Commonwealth countries”, adding that the attacks had caused an “unnecessary headache”.
“We never imagined that Churchill or Gandhi would attract complaints,” he continued. “We thought they were both widely liked and admired figures.
“The Churchill mural was just a bit of fun with the idea that he had two fingers up ordering a double espresso. Sadly, we had to get rid of it after it was repeatedly vandalised.
“It is simply silly to say we are celebrating British imperialism and colonialism. We are just an independent chain put together by people who work hard and yet people seem to want to bring politics into it to try and drag us down.”
‘It is simply silly to say we are celebrating imperialism and colonialism, yet people want to drag us down’