After 100 years, final brew for stall that became part of the East End
Syd’s granddaughter Jane Tothill, who will be serving up the hot drinks and rolls for the last time today.
IN THE city of the Cafe Royal and Lyons’ Corner Houses, a wooden cart that purveyed fake coffee and “poor man’s Bovril” might have attracted the attention of the authorities for all the wrong reasons.
But Syd’s coffee stall, which is shutting up shop in the East End after serving customers for more than a century, has been snapped up for posterity by the Museum of London.
During the Second World War, its owner Syd Tothill and his wife May obtained a special licence to ignore the blackout and open at night to cater for air-raid wardens.
When May was injured by shrapnel from a nearby explosion, the War Office had Syd Junior brought home from a secret RAF mission to keep the
Syd’s coffee stall open for business in the 1920s. Now it will go into the London Collection.
stall running. Mr Tothill, a First World War veteran, had used £117 of his invalidity pension to open the business in 1919.
Like most “coffee” stalls of its
time it did not sell coffee, but a brown liquid containing the essence of coffee beans, chicory and sugar. It also sold tea, cocoa and a Bovril substitute, Bovex.
The stall has passed down through three generations. In the 1950s, Syd Junior and his wife Iris adopted the name Hillary Caterers, after Sir Edmund Hillary’s conquest of Everest.
Its current owner Jane Tothill, Syd’s granddaughter, has been serving filled rolls, coffee and tea there for more than 30 years.
She is donating the stall to the museum for its London Collection when she closes it for the last time today.
Museum curator Vyki Sparkes said it was “an invaluable piece of our shared history as Londoners, a quiet witness to the challenges and changes in the heart of the East End over the last 100 years”.
The stall was made by a coachbuilder in nearby Hackney Road and custom built with mahogany and brass fittings.