£3.20 for a bowl of cereal - is there anything left out there that hasn't been wankified?

[Neverbuyheliumbalonz]

So the new cereal cafe has opened in East London, with a bowl of cereal going for £3.20. Apparently there are over a hundred types of cereal and 30 different types of milk.

On the opening day the owner got a bit of stick from a channel 4 reporter who questioned whether they should be selling cereal at £3.20 a bowl, considering they were in one of Londons poorest boroughs
www.channel4.com/news/cereal-cafe-opens-in-london-but-can-it-survive

Now I actually thought that that reporter was quite unfair because there are tonnes of places in that area selling overpriced shit that are 'not accessible to the poor' so I don't think these guys are doing anything different to anyone else in that respect. However the owner handled it terribly, especially when he said 'this isnt one of Londons poorest boroughs is it?' and when asked why the cereal was so expensive he said 'its imported from America' as if that justified it? He just epitomised the 'out of touch hipster'.

But AIBU to think that £3.20 for one bowl of cereal is just a hilarious rip off, regardless of whether you can afford it or not? Yes I know, people who go there are total mugs can spend their money how they choose and its 'an experience' or whatever.

But it's.........breakfast cereal

Plus they keep using the word 'source' when talking about the cereals (if we can source it, we will sell it) which automatically puts them into wankdom anyway.

I guess time will tell on this one...

Seems most of the people slagging it off are thinking about just pouring cereal out of a box. But you can blend a variety of grains (and even different types of the same grain - eg. oats come in steel cut, old-fashioned, porridge, and oat bran). Then there are toppings/extras - fruit. nuts. Different sweeteners.

Just think of how many different varieties that are in your local supermarket. And then think they this (hopefully) will be fresh cereal grains, mixed in various ways - minus the preservatives, sugar and salt in the boxed ones.

I think they are just serving cereal out of the box aren't they? Ok, so the 'cereal mixologist' will do you a cocktail of Lucky Charms with Cookie Crisp, covered with strawberry milk, but I think the whole idea is maximum preservatives and sugar isn't it?!

Maybe people just heard 'twins from Ireland' and got a sense of dread and pain as visions of Jedward flashed before them.

I think it is. a good original idea. Of course you can have it cheaper at home, but you can also make your own pizza cheaper at home, or coffee, or tea. That is not the point. If you are going out for breakfast, lunch or whatever, of course you are going to pay a premium. I hope it becomes popular, especially with nice older teenagers who cannot go into a pub to sit down and have a chat. Good luck to the owners. I will be visiting soon.

I don't understand why they are getting criticised for being in Tower Hamlets. I used to work in a whisky bar in Canary Wharf where we would sell a shot of whisky for anything up to £1000. I don't remember being harassed because we were selling expensive stuff in a poor borough.

There will always be rich people and poor people but the tone of the article implies that expensive shops/eateries should only be able to operate in upmarket areas, in some sort of economic apartheid.

The profit they're making on a bowl of cereal after the cost of the product, rent, rates, tax, staffing and other overheads is probably not that unreasonable. Certainly no more unreasonable than a pub selling draught cola for £2 when the mix has probably cost them a penny or a cinema selling popcorn for £4.50 a bucket for something that costs pennies. At the end of the day whatever you buy outside of home is generally a lot more expensive than having it at home.

I've finally made it as a Mumsnetter, this thread is on Discussion of the Day, my life is complete!

Oh and for the record can I say I have accepted that IABU about the price, but I won't back down on the 'hipster twat/aren't we so quirky/'source' element of it!

That area of Shoreditch/Hoxton square is truly 24 hours with city workers during the day and hipsters partying until 6am. I was there a few weeks ago and it really is packed all the time. It's also a place which has an international crowd so if the cafe stocks cereals from other countries I can see it will do very well. I can imagine it'll never take off in the provinces but it'll be fine in Shoreditch where novelty reigns

I'd be happier if Channel 4 were asking the new owners of the New Era estate in Hoxton if they think it's right to evict families who won't be able to pay the jacked up rents they're going to impose.

Someone upthread asked I wonder in comparison, what do people on here think £3.20 will buy you in terms on a sit in breakfast around London?

Mercifully, in many areas, still quite a lot. DH and I have lived in a very deprived area not far from Brick Lane, and now in a fairly affluent middle class SW suburb where tiny terraces have rocketed to over 700k. Both areas have had a standard issue caff where you can sit down for a bacon sarnie and coffee for less than this, or the most enormous full English for under a fiver. Both did a roaring trade (from a range of classes and backgrounds) and both areas remain hipster-free, thank god.

Even in the City where I work you can get breakfast for less than this in many unpretentious little cafes on street corners. And an amazing lunch for a fiver. It's the hipsters paying insane premiums for endless pointless diversionary novelties that kills so many areas.

Haven't read the thread but just wanted to add you are not just paying for cereal, you are also paying the wages of the staff who serve you and a portion of the rent, power and depreciation which enables you to sit at a table in a warm cafe as well as some (hoped for) profit for the owner.

*....but I won't back down on the hipster/twat/aren't we so quirky/"source" element if it!"

What a silly thing to say. Do you have this kind of attitude to all new, original business ideas?

Not your cup of tea - fine, don't go there. But writing people off as "twats" is hardly a mature attitude, is it?

On a totally different note....I just hope they have a good loo in there. The only reason I was made to eat Weetabix every morning was to...let's just say...'stimulate my gastrocolonic reflex'. I wonder if the cool dudes running the cafe factored that in.

What woozlebear said. The traditional caffs manage to make a profit but not charge rip off prices. Probably same overheads. So I still feel that this is just a big twatty rip off. Emperor's New Clothes again.

I remember when Marks and Spencer's started selling sandwiches in the 80s it was the same cries of "99p for a prawn mayo sandwich??? It's a rip off. No one will buy them. What a gimmick!!!" By the way a small pot of Prets take away porridge retails at £2.25p

caffe my 'hipster twat' comments come from the fact that this guy seemed fairly clueless about the area in which he had decided to open his business, not seeing past his hipster bubble as referenced upthread, repeatedly using the word 'source' about frigging breakfast cereal, and the fact that I know quite a few people of a similar ilk and 'twat' is a fairly good adjective for them, and while he might not be one of them, several things point to it being a positive on that particular test!

HTH

It's almost as though he is trying to cover rent, tax, wages, produce costs and make a profit. Outrageous xoxo

London madness! Why not eat your normal bowl of breakfast cereal before leaving the house???

Things like this make me very glad to live in the NW

"Behold the rise of the idiots" indeed SomethingOnce

It reminds me of the new "grocery shop" opened in my very-recently-trendy neighbourhood, Peckham. It's all vintage shop counters, trendy minimalist fonts saying "Gone fishin'" when they take one of their many holidays, and fronted by a hipster foodie couple who deign to open 5 days a week from something like 10-5pm, selling occasional rare breeds of Kentish apple and specially imported pork scratchings (I may be making this up). I wandered in last Christmas, in search of a mince pie perhaps slightly above the average, and saw that they were selling thimble-sized versions for a pound a pop. Or at their special offer price of nine for £8.50.

Twats is indeed an appropriate term. Like Shoreditch/Hackney, there are certainly people living in this area who have got money. But there's a difference between having money and being patronised as being flagrantly idiotic enough to fall for such lunacy.

Back to the olde cereal shoppe. I think it's a ridiculous idea, mainly because everybody knows that cereal is a pathetic excuse for a food stuff, with nobody proud to include it in their daily menu, unless they are a child.

I don't get what the big deal with this is...

I actually think it's a great idea.

It's unique - people will hear about it and go there. It's not exactly designed to be breakfast every morning. There are plenty of other 'treat' type places opening up all over the place - milkshake shops, dessert parlours, etc. How is this one any different?

Yes you can buy a box of cereal and some milk for a lot less than what they charge for a bowl. But you can also buy a tub of ice cream for a lot less than what my local dessert parlour charges for a sundae. Doesn't stop DH and I going in there every so often.

And as others have said - you'll pay practically that amount on a cup of tea or coffee from the likes of Starbucks, Costa or Cafe Nero...

People are clearly willing to spend out on treats. And lets face it, a bowl of something like lucky charms which are full of sugar is definitely more of a treat food.

I'm still amazed that Londoners have enough spare cash that it is considered a treat, or a starbucks coffee ffs. That is the London bubble to me. I'm looking at that price & thinking I could get a variety pack for that with money to spare.

I wish people outside the London high earners had any idea how everybody else lives. MN is meant to be lots of different views, well here is mine. what you spend at Pret every week is more than my food budget for a family of 4.

When will this consumer madness end??

DS would love it !

Unfortunately, he's 6 and we live about 200 miles away.

Teapot, I love how the grey shop front (see General Store, Anderson & Co., Flock and Field) has been adopted by the food and wine Village Grocer. (The observant will note the old food and wine sign, to the top right of the awning, a relic from a bygone era.)

In California, the big thing is toast restaurants, apparently. Not sue if that is more or less wanky.