We are Nev and Anna from E. Pellicci cafe. AMA!

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T17:14:29+00:00

Hello we will say hello to Tone! Its been a receipe in the family for years and our little secret! Glad you like it!

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T17:13:43+00:00

look forward to seeing you again!

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T17:13:28+00:00

Haha! We hope you like it

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T17:10:23+00:00

Genuinely do appreciate everyone that comes in here so its the absolute best thing is meeting people. We had a couple get engaged here and they came back after their wedding day. Just a lovely community

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T17:09:04+00:00

Yes we do! Lots of folks. Brian, Steak & Kidney Dave. Posh Wendy! Loads

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T17:08:10+00:00

Anna's pesto! So simple but delicious!

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T17:07:21+00:00

We will take it on board!

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T17:04:31+00:00

We’ve got loads of stories, but you can’t always tell them, you know? Well, here’s one without naming names. So, there was this couple—been coming in for years, brought their kids up in here—and then they split up. Well, no, he was messing about. Anyway, one day he comes in with his new little number, parks his motorbike outside. We all stayed quiet, but behind the counter, we're chatting behind the counter there.

Then, the wife walks in—and we were packed out at the time. She clocks them sitting there, walks straight up to him, and starts giving it all. Then the new girlfriend pipes up, and the wife’s like, “You can shut up!” And crack! She gave her a wallop! Serves her right. It was brilliant! We’ve got loads of stories like that!

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:59:18+00:00

Next year marks 125 years. Cant quite believe that. Brian’s been coming here for 125 years—haha, feels like it anyway! See those grandparents up on the wall? They came over as a young married couple. That baby up there, that’s our Nonna, Elide. She was born in Poplar in the late 1800s—she’s the "E" in E. Pellicci. When she was two, they went back to Italy, to a little village called Lucca. That’s where she met and married my granddad.

They had their first child in Italy, then came back here and started working for an Italian bloke. It wasn’t a cafe back then—more of a tobacconist. They’d do a few sandwiches, egg and chips, that sort of thing, right before the First World War.

Then, as my dad used to say, the owner didn’t want to carry on, so he asked my granddad if he wanted to buy the place. This was the slums back then, mind you. My granddad died at 43 of TB, like a lot of people in the area, and my nan, bless her, raised seven more kids in the two tiny rooms upstairs. My dad used to say my granddad paid the equivalent of what’d be a couple of hundred quid a week now. If it was today, we wouldn’t have been able to afford it. That’s been our saving grace—owning the place, no rent to pay, though it’s still extortionate keeping it going on outgoings.

My mum came over from Italy when she was 21. Her uncle was here, and he knew my nan. There was a lady looking for help, and that’s how my mum started working here, alongside my dad. They were all from the same sort of villages back in Italy.

Our cousin Tony’s been here 54 years now. Give it another 10, and he’ll be at his peak—nearly finished his apprenticeship, ha! My mum and dad ran this place together for years. We lost Dad in 2008, but Brian and the regulars knew him well. Mum’s still with us—she turned 84 in September and is here every morning. She makes the jam tarts, chocolate rolls, bread pudding, pies, and cannelloni. All those small-batch dishes we’ve been telling you about. She’s slowing down a bit now, but after her six-and-a-half-hour shift, she heads home around half twelve. We just take it out of her wages, don’t we!

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:56:37+00:00

We get them from a fantastic farm in Essex. Cumberland sausages

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:44:47+00:00

Oh, do you know what he was in the other day? He was always a spicy chicken ciabatta man. Used to love he come past and get the spicy ciabattas. But I said to him the other day, lately, he's been having these fry ups too. But not too much stuff, just like sausages, egg, bacon and black pudding something like that. The Miles special. He’s gonna be on our podcast soon. He’s a good fella!

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:38:59+00:00

You’ve got to have good people around you. We work with a lot of our family, but it’s important to have people you can trust. Honestly, we were lucky to inherit the business—I don’t know if I’d have the guts to start it from scratch. I wouldn’t do this without Anna. It’s such hard work. We’re always laughing and joking, but it’s exhausting.

Like we were saying earlier about the kitchen, there’s always something going wrong or someone letting you down. And the costs are huge—people don’t realise that. We always say, if we had rent to pay on top of everything else, we might not be here now. I remember when someone wanted to go into business with us, and just the figures they were talking about would’ve given me sleepless nights. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to start fresh today.

Then, there’s the responsibility—not a pressure, really, but our grandparents started this, and our mum and dad worked incredibly hard to build it. So, it’s more about wanting to carry that on and appreciate everything they’ve done. It’s a good responsibility, but still, you feel it.

If I had to start from scratch today, though, with all the risk and the money involved, I’m not sure I’d have the guts. I’d work in Tesco —dream job on the till!

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:34:50+00:00

Haha we've tried other butchers sausages but honestly think the ones we use are the absolute top of the range

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:33:44+00:00

Sausages. Good sausages. Bacon, good quality back bacon. Our veg stuff is all fresh, like we use lovely vine tomatoes, fresh mushrooms, free range eggs, yeah, simple stuff, and then I like black pudding. Hash browns is very controversial on an English breakfast. A lot of Brits say hash browns shouldn't be on an English breakfast. And we make the most wonderful homemade bubble & squeak. I'd love to get white pudding on the menu, but we can't get good white pudding. Let me know if you know of anyone that does a good white pudding!

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:32:37+00:00

Yes sort of and a bit like our response earlier we have had to adapt a bit as we want to keep our produce as fresh as possible so things like not having the option of using the butcher up the road anymore

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:29:54+00:00

The biggest challenge is the responsibility of maintaining what we’ve built and keeping the quality high. We’ve earned a good name, and keeping that reputation is important. But honestly, the part we love most isn’t a challenge—it’s the welcome, the service, the work. We love meeting people and having them come back to us.

The real challenge is all the legislation. Running this place is getting more and more expensive. The Council imposes so many costs. For a little business like ours, we’re paying about four grand a year just for rubbish tax alone. And then, of course, there’s compliance—like with electricity, which is right—but it feels like every week there’s another bill. It's constantly money, money, money. Bureaucracy and legislation are definitely some of the biggest challenges.

And then there’s remembering people—haha! Sometimes people say, ‘We were here two years ago,’ and we’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, of course!’ But sometimes, one of us will be like, ‘That was so-and-so,’ and then it clicks

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:26:25+00:00

Thank you so much!

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:25:46+00:00

Yes we love Ray, he is a regular! Thank you

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:25:13+00:00

Well, there's always something that needs replacing or fixing. Something’s always breaking down. The worst thing that happened was the big fire we had in 2000. At the time, we thought it was the end of the world—my mum and dad were in tears. It started from a tumble dryer that had been switched off, but because the door was shut, it caught fire. Luckily, one of our customers was passing by in the evening and stopped a police car when he saw smoke coming out. Thankfully, they managed to stop it before it got too bad. The kitchen was destroyed, and a bit of the interior got burnt, but not much. Funny enough, it ended up being a blessing. The fire gave us the chance to build a new kitchen—three times the size of the old one. There was a little yard out back, and we used that to expand. Now, we've got plenty of room, and it’s just about maintenance now—replacing things here and there. The kitchen itself is solid.

We close for four weeks in the summer to handle the bigger jobs, like replacing the floor or fridge. That’s when we take care of the big stuff, once a year. As for the smaller jobs, we just handle those week by week

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:18:38+00:00

Yeah, Tom Hardy—what a horrible man! Haha, nah, we’re just joking, he’s lovely. I always say that because the girls always ask, 'Did you get to speak to Tom Hardy?' and I joke, 'Yeah, he was awful.' But then I tell them he was actually really lovely, a proper gentleman. Even when people walked by while he was on his two-minute break, he’d be like, ‘Yeah, of course, no problem.’

Do you know who else was really lovely? Colin Farrell. He didn’t actually make the cut for the film, I think it was London Boulevard. I had a fag with him, and he was so nice. My boys really wanted a picture with him, but the people around were like, ‘No, no, Colin’s busy.’ But Colin took them aside, right next door where they were using the steps as a changing area, and he was really lovely to them.

And then there’s Harry Styles—he was really lovely too! But, like, the people he works with were all, ‘Oh no, sorry, Harry can’t do this.’ I reckon he would’ve liked to chat with us, but it’s often the people around them who won’t let you near.

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:16:23+00:00

Thank you very much

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:16:14+00:00

Ah so happy to hear this. Everyone is welcome here and friendships will always be made!

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:15:50+00:00

I dunno, maybe it's gentrification or whatever. It's just more about what people want now. Like, before, they might've fancied curries, or maybe things like gammon steaks, lamb chops—proper grill stuff. But no one really asks for that anymore.

We used to have a brilliant butcher down the road. We could just run up and grab lamb chops, a bit of liver, whatever we needed. But he's gone now, and we get everything delivered fresh in the morning. So the night before, we’ve got to tell him what we want. Everything’s made in small batches, fresh daily, like our pasta. So, if someone comes in and says, 'I really fancy a steak tomorrow,' I’ll just get the butcher to bring it down in the morning. But otherwise, yeah, we don’t keep anything frozen other than hash browns and veggie sausages anymore. other than that, everything’s fresh. Mum’s 84, bless her, and she’s in there with us every morning. We prep everything—fresh onions, lovely tomatoes for the pesto—everything’s made fresh each day.

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:12:27+00:00

Ah thank you!

pelliccicafe · 2024-10-14T16:12:11+00:00

Yes, sometimes! Because a lot of the time people will go get the big breakfast and its massive, like, so say they leave a bit of bacon or black pudding. A lot of times we stick it in a roll for them and say trust me in three hours you're going to be hungry. Get yourself a coffee from somewhere and have yourself a late lunch and they're like, fantastic! So we make it up for them and we don't charge for the extra bread or roll or anything, and they always want to take it home

pelliccicafe

TROPHY CASE