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The two London cafes dedicated to retro cereal and committed like no other to the novelty, fluorescent aesthetic of mid 2010s hipsterism, will close as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Twin-brother owners Alan and Gary Keery wrote on Instagram that it was “A sad Cheerio” for the Shoreditch and Camden branches of Cereal Killer Cafe.
They wrote:
After 5.5 years we will be saying Cheerio to our Cafes, for now. After a long period of closure due to Coronavirus, and with the future of the hospitality industry looking very uncertain, we have made a decision that our Cafes on Brick Lane and Camden will not reopen their doors.
The first cafe, which would later be on the receiving end of protests against gentrification in East London, opened on Brick Lane in late 2014, four years after this was uploaded to YouTube. It was billed as the first cereal-only cafe in the country, selling rare and retro cereal varieties from America, Australia, France, South Africa, and South Korea, with a load of different milks and toppings like Oreos and marshmallow. There was more than a little 90s Richie Rich kid-dream about the whole enterprise, which the owners say served over one million bowls of cereal in its five and a half years of trading.
The Keery brothers were keen to emphasise in the Instagram video announcement that the brand had enjoyed decent sales online throughout lockdown and would continue to sell goods via its website into the future. “It’s not all bad news,” they said. “You can still buy all the awesome unique and hard to find Cereal we are famous for on our website.” There is also a cereal subscription box tailor made for “the cereal super fan” out there. They also said they had goals of opening the cafés open again, perhaps in two years, but “due to the current climate it won’t be financially viable” for them to remain open now.
Few businesses in London have so far announced that the pandemic has forced their permanent closure, with those that have being largely from within the west London fine dining niche. Cereal Killer’s farewell is quite different, but perhaps not surprising. It had had its day.