The room

Fourteen tables. Nobody counts your hours.

Mosaic floor, marble tops, and brass fittings the previous owner left behind that we couldn't bring ourselves to replace.

The long room after opening, tables down one side and the window light behind them.

The counter at the window: two grinders, the brew tray, and customers seated in front of it.

Bentwood chairs and small tables under the wall lamps, most of them empty mid-afternoon.

A steel tumbler of filter coffee on the counter, the froth still standing.

The details

Everything you'd have to come in to find out.

Most of what people ring up to ask is on this list. If it isn't, ring anyway — someone is behind the counter from six and they would rather answer than have you make the trip for nothing.

The room was a stationer's until 2009 and a photocopy shop after that. The brass fittings, the glass-fronted cabinet by the till and the ceiling rose are all theirs. We put in the tables, the filter and the mosaic repair, and left the rest alone.

Tables: Fourteen. Four seat one or two, the rest seat four, and two at the back push together for six.
Floor: Original mosaic. Chipped in the corner by the door and staying that way.
Power: Two plug points, both on the back wall. First come.
Wi-Fi: Yes. The code is chalked on the board behind the counter. It is not fast.
Music: None. There is a radio behind the counter for the cricket and that is the whole audio policy.
Air conditioning: No. Ceiling fans, and the shutters go up at the front when it gets close.
Loo: One, at the back past the kitchen door. Ask for the key.
Step at the door: One, about four inches. We'll help if you need a hand — say so at the counter or ring ahead.

How it works

Sit as long as you like. Genuinely.

Students sit all afternoon on one coffee. Nobody is going to come over and clear your cup to make a point. The economics work because mornings and evenings are busy, and a quiet room at three in the afternoon is not costing us anything — it is what the room is for.

The one exception is between six and half past eight in the evening, when the bajji comes out and every table is wanted. If you have been at a four-top on your own since two and the room fills up, we may ask you to move to a smaller table. That is the entire extent of it, and we will feel bad about asking.

Take a call if you have to. Take it quietly. There is a stretch of pavement outside that everyone uses for the long ones.