Attendant Coffee Roasters

Why is it significant?

Attendant Coffee Roasters in London is a specialty coffee bar located inside a subterranean Victorian gents' public toilet built around 1890 on Foley Street. Reopening in 2013 after two years of restoration, the cafe retains its original Doulton white ceramic tiles, brass piping, and overhead cisterns. Customers sit at individual coffee booths crafted directly from sanitized 1890 porcelain urinals fitted with wooden countertops.

Key Facts

What to look for?

• The underground site on Foley Street in London was built around 1890 as a gents' lavatory with Doulton porcelain.
• The public lavatory was padlocked in the 1960s and remained dormant for over fifty years.
• Two entrepreneurs spent two years deep-cleaning the site before opening Attendant Coffee Roasters in 2013.
• Attendant Coffee Roasters repurposed original 1890 porcelain urinals into customer seating booths with wooden countertops.

Photo: Google

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What was the Attendant coffee bar on Foley Street originally built for in 1890?

Look closely at the sidewalk here on Foley Street, and you will spot an ornate wrought-iron cage surrounding a staircase leading down into the earth. To a passerby in late-nineteenth-century London, this was a proud symbol of Victorian civic engineering. Built around eighteen ninety, this subterranean vault was a gents' public lavatory commissioned for Fitzrovia, fitted with lavish porcelain crafted by Doulton and Company. For decades, neighborhood workers trod these stone steps. But in the nineteen sixties, the iron gates were padlocked, and the room fell silent. For over fifty years, it sat completely dormant beneath the feet of central London. Generations of pedestrians walked past every day, unaware that a forgotten piece of Victorian history lay sleeping just beneath their feet. In the early two thousand tens, two visionary entrepreneurs saw potential where others saw ruin. After two years of painstaking deep-cleaning and restoration, the space reopened in two thousand thirteen as Attendant, transforming a forgotten underground bathroom into one of London's most famous specialty coffee bars. Step down into the subterranean room, and you will see how beautifully the history was preserved. The white ceramic tiles, brass piping, and overhead cisterns are all original. But the real highlight is the seating along the wall. Those porcelain dividers creating individual coffee booths are the original eighteen ninety urinals, thoroughly sanitized, polished, and fitted with a wooden countertop. Sitting inside a Victorian urinal while sipping a flat white might sound absurd, but it became an instant icon of London coffee culture. Beyond the quirky design, the coffee here is taken very seriously. Attendant roasts its own ethically sourced beans, crafting espresso paired with organic British milk to highlight delicate notes of chocolate, berries, and stone fruit. And here is a hilarious bit of local irony. Despite being built inside a famously restored underground toilet, this cafe actually has no bathroom for customers today! So find a spot at the porcelain bar, savor the rich aroma of fresh coffee, and enjoy one of London's most unique architectural reinventions.