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Originally published by Black Bough Poetry as part of my feature in their excellent Silver Branch series, this is a poetic-prose celebration of my local greasy spoon – The Electric Cafe. A classic of its kind, the Electric has been there in one form or other since around 1905.

The current owners, whose family have been running the place for over forty years, have just had a baby girl, so thought it a good time to share this. The Electric can be found at 258 Norwood Road, London. It’s also on Instagram.

A trip to the electric islands

Must have sounded modern once, The Electric Café. Its wavy, swirl-tailed, painted signpost lettering, a reflection of a thrusting world, last century, or the back-end of the one before.

​Today, the café’s charm persists through facing backwards. Nothing fancy, this is a proper old school, greasy spoon, still serving bubble, along with bacon, eggs, mushrooms and the rest. You pay in cash. You may plump for a generous mug of tea, or filter coffee if you want it, but the classic drink is instant coffee, topped with frothed boiled milk – drawn from a slender, stainless-steel hot tap, set into the counter.

​Each brown, formica-topped table in here’s an island, within a scattered archipelago – connected with its neighbours through shared hungry purpose, though fiercely independent. Every border post, enforced by the glass screen of a mobile phone, or less common now, the rustle of a fast-flicked tabloid. Plastic bottles of generic brown and red sauce, stand sentinel – lost modernist bishops, wandered far from chessboard.

​When someone rattles through the door, they sometimes look confused, peering at the breakfast options, or touching hands to mouths, uncertain. If a regular, they’ll get a nodded ‘alright’ from the proprietor Stav. If not, most nervously approach the till, eyes clutching at the menu, but some retreat, befuddled, straight back out to Norwood Road.

For someone half-obsessed with goodbyes, with loss, I love this place for its arrivals. Big plates brought out, piled with freshly fried ingredients, ready to deliver twenty-minute hits of melting salt-fat comfort and yolky potato, before recipients must scrape back their chairs and return, reluctant, to the mainland once again.