For six months this year, I was actively scouring the streets of Soho for a shop — and another few last year, more passively. Enthusiasm surely dwindled in this time for a myriad of reasons: 

First, the money. £70-odd thousand and up for a toilet around here now. That’s before any tarting up, staffing, business taxes and so on. 

And say you do find a good spot, i.e. good character for a goodish price, as I at one point felt I had. You cut the proverbial ribbon and a week later Homies Barcelona moves in on your left and an American Candy store or vape and bong emporium on your right, pretending to sell out-of-date, counterfeit cereal. I’ve seen this happen on Oxford Street and The Strand; now it’s happening in Soho — Snog and the little hardware shop on Brewer Street being the first to go but not, I’m sure, the last. 

Then there’s the staffing qualm. Not the money — I’ve already touched on that — but the morale. Having worked in retail myself, I know that whether it’s extremely busy or extremely quiet, it can be extremely tedious. Must there ever be such a thing as a tedious job at THAMES? 

Not to mention the little annoyances. People parking Lime bikes on the porch, asking for directions to Soho House, and so on. 

So I packed my dream away and put it on the shelf to come back to. And you know how they say God closes a door and opens a window, or the other way round? Not a week later, an opportunity without any of the above problems arose, right here at 6-10 Lexington Street.

Click the box below and see for yourself.