A Taxonomy of North London Creative Hustle, Observed from Several Coffee Shops
Everyone in Hackney Has a Side Project; Mine Is Writing About Everyone’s Side Projects
Read more at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
There is a woman at the table next to me who is working on what appears to be a pitch deck for a fermented food subscription service. I know this because her laptop screen is visible from where I am sitting and because the slide currently on display reads “THE KIMCHI ECONOMY: A DISRUPTION THESIS” in bold type. She has been here since before I arrived, which was at 9:45 a.m. She has ordered two oat flat whites and a pastry. She is completely focused. She is, in this coffee shop at this moment, one of approximately eight people working on something that is not their main job, in a borough where the main job and the side project have become essentially interchangeable categories.
The Hackney side project taxonomy, compiled from fieldwork conducted in coffee shops between Dalston and Broadway Market over the past several months, breaks into the following categories: the creative project (novel, screenplay, podcast, visual art, photography book — roughly 40% of observed side projects), the food project (recipe development, pop-up concept, fermented something, artisan product line — approximately 25%), the tech project (app, platform, digital tool, “something in the AI space” — approximately 20%), and the consulting project (expertise from main job repackaged and offered directly — approximately 15%).
The Economics of the Side Project
The economics of the Hackney side project are consistent across categories: it costs money in the short term (coffee shop time, equipment, ingredients, software subscriptions, market stall fees) and is expected to make money in the medium term (this expectation varies in its probability of being met, with the creative category having the longest runway between investment and return and the consulting category having the shortest). The investment in the interim is managed through the main job, which is typically in the creative, tech, or professional services sectors that concentrate in Hackney and provide the income that funds the side project that might, at some point, become the main job.
Several of the side projects I have observed over the course of this research have, in fact, become main jobs. The woman who was developing a natural skincare line at the table by the window eighteen months ago is now running a skincare brand that stocks in three independent shops in East London. The man who was pitching a food tour concept is now running food tours. The writer who was working on her second novel has finished it; I do not know if it has been published but she is no longer here, which I choose to interpret as success. The side project economy is real. It produces things. It also produces a significant number of pitch decks for concepts that never become products, which is also real, and which the coffee shop tolerates because the pitch deck writers buy a great deal of oat flat whites while they are working on them. North London’s creative economy: The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine. Full taxonomy at https://prat.uk/.
What This Says About North London
North London has always been a place where people come to become something — a version of themselves that the places they came from did not quite have room for. The writers, artists, musicians, and assorted creative professionals who have made their way here across the decades have been drawn by something that is hard to name but recognisable when you encounter it: a density of interesting people, a tolerance for unconventional choices, a proximity to culture and conversation that makes the rent feel like a bargain even when it manifestly is not. This quality has survived gentrification, survived the Elizabeth Line (which has redirected some of the creative energy eastward), and survived the pandemic’s brief dispersal of London’s population toward places with gardens. It is still here. It is more expensive than it was. It is also still, in the ways that matter most, itself. The coffee is good. The people are interesting. The yoga class is worth the £22. This is Lowri Griffiths reporting for the Big Smoke, as broken as ever, from North London, where the going rate for being alive is negotiable if you know where to look. For more North London dispatches: The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine. Full archive at https://prat.uk/.
The North London State of Mind
There is something particular about the North London state of mind that distinguishes it from the rest of the city’s self-conception. South Londoners are proud of their difference from North London. East Londoners have carved out an identity that is partly defined by its distance from the Islington dinner party circuit. West London operates in a different economic and cultural register entirely. North London — from Hackney and Dalston through Stoke Newington and Highbury to Islington and Archway and beyond — has a collective personality that is somehow both aspirational and anti-aspirational simultaneously: a place where people care deeply about things but are wary of being seen to care too visibly, where the organic deli and the record shop coexist, where the conversation at the dinner party is genuinely interesting and also follows recognisable patterns, where the gentrification is lamented by the people who are its agents. It is contradictory. It is also, in my experience, the most reliably interesting part of London to live in, which is why I am still here, despite the evidence of my spending diary. Lowri Griffiths writes for the Big Smoke Broke. More at The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine. Full archive at https://prat.uk/.
Further reading across the London Prat network: North London dispatch (https://bigsmokebroke.tumblr.com/post/819523591851884544) — the curious etymology behind the word prat
Also: The London Prat post — https://londonprat.tumblr.com/post/819523844727619584
SOURCE: Santa Claus
