With Milk - Philip Lane Bakery

A BIT ABOUT US

We are Hana & Lela. The sister duo behind With Milk on Philip Lane, Tottenham. Growing up in Tottenham, we never could have imagined opening a speciality coffee shop. Hana was doing a masters, and Lela was a nursery nurse before deciding to take a leap of faith and work on our dream project.

Something you guys may not know, is that one of the main reasons we decided to open With Milk was because of Lela’s disability. Having had struggles for many years with EDS & ME, Lela found it hard to find flexible work (this is why you don't see her much in the mornings). Opening a coffee shop probably wasn't the simplest way of solving the problem, but it seemed good at the time. Another reason was because Tottenham is our home. Born and raised here we couldn't think of a better place to open up our new business in 2020. 

We launched in early 2020, not knowing that lockdown was soon to follow. Six weeks later covid forced us to close for 2 weeks, and rethink our approach in this new landscape.

The goal was to give customers some solace in the rough times. We hope we were able to achieve that. We were there to give everyone a chance at some normality, and you were there to keep us going.

In an attempt to give people the option to stay local and pick up nice staples and treats, we reopened with a halal deli inside the coffee shop. Being Muslim we had to look for halal food to stock. Finding high quality, alcohol free and halal items was sometimes a challenge, even when looking for cheese. We did our best to hunt down the coveted items such as flour for all those budding bakers during lockdown. Since then, we have further grown and adapted to your requests; proudly stocking local suppliers such as Wilde’s Cheese, Todays Bread, &Poca, Bee17 and more.

With the amazing support of our customers we have been able to grow a little With Milk community. We could never have predicted the kind of support from our regulars, their lockdown babies and an army of lockdown dogs (who are always welcome).

So the project!

We are opening a coffee house. We are keeping it on the same stretch of road so current customers won't be going much further, maybe even a bit closer. With Milk 2 is at the corner of Philip Lane and Mount Pleasant. The space will allow us to finally offer a proper food menu, many more seats for you to enjoy our coffee in. We will also have an expanded deli full of lovely fresh produce, preserves, pickles & cupboard staples. Many of which will be made in house. 

What we are asking from you guys, is a little extra support. We want to add a small bakery to this project. Allowing us to offer fresh in house bread, pastries and cakes. To do so we need to raise £35k in 30 days. 

So far we have committed to a location, began working with a brilliant local interior designer and funded 95% of the project ourselves. We are asking you guys to help us put the icing on the cake, by helping us fund the bakery. We think Philip Lane deserves its own little bakery, where you guys will be able to pick up great, fresh produce, baked in house by our team. 

We are investing £200k+ of our own money into this project. The £35k we are asking for, from you will help us pay for the additional bakery equipment we would need to get sourdough on our shelves. We will be totally transparent about the costs and progress of this project. Please feel free to ask us any questions about how the crowdfunding money is being used.

To give you more insight on our plans, we are looking at having the following: 

• Secure buggy storage

• A plethora of in house made pickles, preserves and foodie goods 

• Bigger range of deli items

• A kitchen offering a range of munch 

And with your help a bakery!

Not only will this project be able to offer the community more space to enjoy coffee and food in, it will also provide many more local jobs. The larger space will give us the chance to provide training to those who want to get a foot in the door of hospitality at various levels. We are excited to get to work with more local suppliers and businesses, such as Kai Interiors, another exciting female led local business, who are helping us on this project. 

Although we started work on this project several months ago, we still have a way to go. We are hoping to have the doors open in early 2022. For ongoing updates, including timescales keep an eye on our social media, where we will be posting regularly about all the goings on at big With Milk. 

A huge thanks to our current customers who have been incredibly supportive of us. We hope to see many more new faces.

We hope you guys are as excited about this new project as the With Milk team are.