News: Wheel Cab Coffee

How do you get a coffee in the back of a taxi? Turn it into an espresso bar. That is what mobile barista Graham Buck has done with a London black cab. A year ago the former teacher bought a 1994 Austin Fairway taxi, replaced the passenger seats with an espresso maker and fitted a hatch in the roof to serve his customers.

During the last six months he has been steaming espressos for London’s flat-white aficionados at Brick Lane’s Sunday market, where the cappuccino cab has become a local photo stop.

Why a black cab? “My fiancée did a stint driving people to festivals in a vintage taxi,” he explains. “When her job finished, the cab was standing idle. I had been thinking of opening a coffee shop – the taxi was an ideal solution.

“I built the first coffee-cab in my mum’s back-garden in Bromley, but it had no standing room, so I made the Mark II version. This one has a vintage Neapolitan espresso machine. I was a barista at university and want to serve the best coffee possible”.

Encouraged by the coffee cab’s success, Buck has expanded the fleet to include the cocktail cab that he hires out for parties and a secret new taxi that will get a ‘big reveal’ when it is ready. We are hoping it will be London’s first tea taxi.