Ozzie's Cafe

Last week I was invited to a free screening at Peckham Multiplex. The film, called Consume Peckham, was a project by students from Chelsea Art College and included 18 short films about local businesses and the people behind them (part of the I Love Peckham 2009 Development Project).

Peckham is often a place of division between the people. One of the most striking things about the film was how it so clearly portrayed the divide between the white, middle class residents and the large proportion of people (many Nigerian), who have moved here from other countries and who make up the majority of the population. Most of the well-to-do local art students for example will be found in Bar Story, Peckham’s trendiest bar, with one lamenting, “there is nowhere else to go.” We noted the same predominantly white audience in the screening and I commented that the same was apparent at Frank’s pop-up bar.

Ozzie’s is different. Ozzie’s is the kind of place everyone feels comfortable. This is the role of the local caff: all-welcoming, no pretensions, no frills, no-one hurrying you to leave. All of human life is here. The food at Ozzie’s is pretty rubbish to be honest – questionable mystery meat bangers, tinned mushrooms, cheap juice, you get the idea – but then that really isn’t the point. Places like this are part of a routine, ‘the poetic and mundane details of the everyday.’ They remind us that the world keeps turning, the caff keeps opening and life goes on, no matter what happens in individual lives, and that can be a very comforting thought.