Catching up with our Camden Inspire winners — Hygge Pygge
On December 6th 2018 at Camden Collective, we celebrated the best of Camden and Euston’s local independent businesses whose every day jobs are to offer a unique service, attract new customers and stand out from the crowd. It’s not easy, but what they do make our towns the special places they are. Running your own business in London means high rents and a hugely competitive market. But every day, these business owners continue to astound us with their commitment, innovation and fresh ideas. Putting it to the public vote, we asked you to show your appreciation. 70 businesses took part this year across 6 categories and we had an amazing 6,000 votes, which we only hope to double next year! Now it’s time to catch up with the winners.
Hygge Pygge is a large speciality coffee shop located in the heart of Camden Town. Their mission is to create a cosy space in a busy area, serving speciality coffee, hot chocolate, a selection of freshly baked cakes and pastries from local bakeries, cushions, blankets, candles and a moment of peace to recharge your batteries. They regularly host live music and charity events to help bring our community together. They chose the Danish word “hygge” as part of their name as it translates everyday living, relaxing with friends and family, creating cosy moments.
With their unique creation of a cosy sanctuary on Chalk Farm Road, it’s no surprise that they won in our ‘Best Newcomer’ category, so we spoke to owner Valentina find out more about the story of Hygge Pygge, what she likes about being based in Camden, how she felt when she won the award and any exciting plans for 2019…
What’s the story of Hygge Pygge?
I had been thinking about something like Hygge Pygge for a long time. I am from a small town in Italy and I felt that in big cities such as London, people are usually too busy running around, commuting to work and getting things done, so they need time to slow down and appreciate a moment of calm with a friend or with a book. I thought of creating something like a community space or a friend’s living room where people could always feel welcome, meet friends or make new ones, find good homemade food and speciality coffee and slow down before they continue with their busy day. I also wanted to make sure that families had a space fully dedicated to their little ones, hence my decision to dedicate most of our lower ground floor to a kids’ play area and host weekly kids’ classes so stay at home parents can have a place to meet other parents.
What is Hygge Pygge’s ethos?
Being a focal point for the community through hosting many different activities, giving back and contributing to local charities for example through our “Pay it forward” coffee scheme, listening to people’s feedback to always make sure we grow and improve and offer a service and product that people need.
What do visitors at Hygge Pygge get that they can’t get elsewhere?
A warm welcome, a chat, a space for your little ones to run around (and hopefully get tired enough to sleep later on!) homemade food prepared with love and speciality coffee carefully extracted by our trained baristas.
What do you like about being based in Camden?
It is exciting to be located in a place that so many people visit when travelling to London, which gives us the opportunity to meet and chat to people from all over the world. The local community is incredibly diverse as well and our typical customer on a Tuesday afternoon could be a new parent in need for a nice coffee, a freelancer working from home, someone on a short work placement in London working from the LABS coworking space or an artist working on her latest projects, the area is so characterful!
Why do you think you won in our ‘Best Newcomer’ category in the 2018 Camden Inspire awards?
Let me take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to Camden Inspire for organising the awards and to all the people who voted for us! We have been working really hard since we opened in January 2018 and we are so happy to see that we are making a real impact in people’s lives and that our community appreciates what we are doing. I believe we won because we have been listening to people’s feedback and always strive to innovate, change the things which are not working and add new things that people have been asking for.
Have you got any exciting plans for 2019?
So many! First of all we’ll be adding a few items to our menu (hold tight for pancakes!!!) and we will also be starting a Friday evening Hygge Pygge after work happy hour with 2x1 cocktails and music (looking to add live performances as well), after that we’ll start exploring an evening option so we can offer dinner to all of our wonderful customers.
After all this is implemented we’ll start thinking about Hygge Pygge #2…
Follow Hygge Pygge:
Instagram: @hyggepyggecafe
Website: https://www.hyggepygge.com/
