Honest Grind is serving coffee with social impact

A career in coffee has recently been brewing as a strong solution to some of the life problems faced by disadvantaged people in Camden and beyond with Honest Grind roastery.

In fact, our borough has emerged as a leader in innovative bean-based projects, including Redemption Roasters (which helps prevent reoffending among prison leavers and was founded beneath their first café on Lamb’s Conduit Street) and Well Grounded (offering training, mentoring and career progression for adults facing barriers to employment, all from their home on Camley St).

This time last year, Camden Council ventured into the promising coffee training landscape too, setting up the Honest Grind roastery in a Somers Town basement, and providing what they call a ‘radical employability programme for London’s most vulnerable young people’.

Now, to mark their first birthday, the HGC team have just opened their first coffee stand in a particularly tasty location right in the heart of Euston.

“Since we launched Honest Grind back in March 2023, our wonderful participants have been working hard at developing barista skills and producing specialty grade coffee beans for our wholesale and web store customers” says Programme Lead, Marsha Brown. “Having a customer-facing site was the natural next step, allowing us to emerge from our subterranean production base and get to work serving our beautiful coffee in a more light and airy space. When Daniel Pitt at the Old Diorama Arts Centre (ODAC) contacted us to see if we would be able to provide a café for their gorgeous lobby, I knew at once that this was going to be a great partnership.”