A new Liverpool coffee shop has opened with a unique twist - you can buy all of the furniture inside it.
When you walk into artefact on Roscoe Street, you’ll be forgiven for thinking it’s merely a coffee shop with some sturdy tables and comfy couches. However, this interior design is no accident, as the venue doubles as a vintage furniture shop.
Alex Allen, his mum Jane and her partner James Symonds have been flogging vintage furniture for several years. However, they were struggling to sell their stock at pop-up shops and shows, with their findings filling up two storage lockers and their family home.
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They decided they needed a dedicated place to sell their furniture. But rather than just a shop, it was suggested to them that they should do something unique with a physical location.
James, a 48 year-old from North Wales, said: “Our landlord is from a catering background. He said, 'the City of Liverpool College is opposite, you’d be mad not to make it a coffee shop'. We thought about it, sat in Café Tabac and this was born. This place was born over a coffee.”
He added: “A lot of people come in and ask, ‘where is the vintage furniture?’ But everything in here is for sale.”
According to Alex, a 24 year-old who has spent time across Merseyside and London, customers can build an emotional attachment to the interior. He said: “It’s a conversation starter. Furniture is so ubiquitous, you don’t think too much about it. You don’t think, 'what can a couch be?' It’s pre-loved, we’ve given it a new lease of life and sent it off to a new home.
He added: “The whole thing is giving something loved and beautiful a second chance. That was just applied to furniture but now it’s a building as well.”
James said the interior will therefore be a “fluid space”, with furniture disappearing as customers buy them and new items are brought in. This furniture isn’t just picked randomly either - apart from the doors, it’s all from local sources.
The wooden chairs are from a closed down church in St Helens, the lights are from an old TJ Hughes store and a desk that was originally located at Huyton Barracks. James argued that we should be more appreciative of where our household items are from.
Pointing to the table made in Speke, he said: “The company that made this table, they made these tables for 40 years. There's a desk which came from the old Huyton barracks. Then it became a guy’s work bench for years. It was built to last. We’ve become so throw away. It’s easy to overlook things.”
The last few months have been a whirlwind for Alex, who was planning to move to Spain as a freelance graphic designer and English teacher. He said: “That was six months ago, and I can’t see myself do anything else. This is my life now.”
The artefact team compliment each other’s skills perfectly. Alex sorted out the shop’s online presence, while James led the building work. Jane, a costume maker for film and TV, shaped the shop’s furniture and interior.
Their only recruit was Ollie Laidlaw, 24 year-old from Crosby. As well as being the barista, Ollie is the founder of Rough C.U.T.S.
The group puts on free film screenings which encourage people to take cinema “less seriously” and feel more free to debate a film’s merits and drawbacks. This forms into the businesses’ other aim, which is to be a relaxed cultural space for all.
They have already worked with Shuffle, a project that showcases work by contemporary artists from Liverpool and beyond through DIY, short-run exhibitions and events. James said: “Ollie’s work set us down another path. The arts community have been really kind to us, like Shuffle. They’ve been so welcoming and we wanted to do the same for local arts people.
“If you need a space, something to work, we’ll have you. We’ve had people doing dissertations, we’ve had people cleaning their film cameras.”
There have also been screenings of Twin Peaks, a cult 90s TV show, with acoustic sets and spoken poetry nights planned. You can visit artefact at 71 Roscoe Street in Liverpool city centre.
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