London's first pay-per-minute café facing closure?

Ziferblat is a social network in real life! At 388 Old Street, Shoreditch, London, EC1V 9LT, the café opens from 1000 to midnight, and charges 3p per minute.

For NAMs willing to try, you pick up an alarm clock on arrival, note the time, and check out on completion. Complementary snacks and coffee are available 'on tap' and even bespoke coffee if required.

However, rather than being inundated with 'smash & grab' free-loaders making it uneconomical, Ziferblat, the country’s first pay-per-minute café, is facing closure less than three months after opening because of a lease dispute. According to The Standard, Ziferblat’s role as a café where customers make their own coffee and food, but pay by the minute, means it falls into a legal grey area between being classed as a “shared workspace” and a venue “selling food and drink”.

Hopefully, ways can be found to live with the bureaucracy, avoid biting the dust, and allow the emergence of a new approach to food service...