Housed in a former Save The Children charity shop at the back of the bakery, the cosy two-storey cafe is decked out in calming natural materials and pale hues – and boasts racks of magazines for customers to browse.
The new venue opened on Friday (August 22) in Oriel Place – next to the Hampstead High Street bakery where the brand first started, but members of the community and local businesses were invited in this week for a sneak preview of Gail’s autumn menu.
The Reading Room takes over a former charity shop and is directly behind Gail’s original Hampstead store. (Image: Bridget Galton) A spokesperson aid it was a chance to celebrate seasonal food and “give back to the local community in Hampstead, who have been with us since the beginning of our GAIL’s journey.”
The revamp includes an awning and tables on Oriel Place, and is set to solve the oft-heard quibble that the Hampstead cafe is too small.
The business started out in the late 1990s as The Bread Factory, supplying top chefs and restaurants with bread and baked goods.
But in 2005, Hampstead became the first venue to open to the public – named after co-founder Gail Mejia, the Belsize Park-raised baker whose delicious croissants started it all.
Gail’s CEO Tom Molnar, who lives in Camden Town where the chain has its headquarters, previously told the Ham&High how he used to queue up for them.
He said: “When I came to London to work, it was a food disaster. The UK had a destroyed baking culture. You’d get bread wrapped in plastic maybe a couple of days old, and you had to find these little places. Two of us used to go to where Gail had this little shop behind Harrods. We’d stand in line for half an hour just for a good croissant.”
The pair became partners with Mejia to help grow her business, opening The Bread Factory in Hendon, then a bakery in 2005 called Gail’s.
“I lived in Notting Hill, my friend in Golders Green. Hampstead was close to the bakery, and minutes from the tube station,” he recalled.
“It was a great place to experiment – it had consumers that cared – but it was a hard start. I remember the big giant Paul’s opened across the street a week before us and everyone associated great bread with France.
“We didn’t know how to do coffee or run a till. We were committed to bringing more choice to people, and thank God for the customers who knew or remembered good bread.”
There are now 170 Gail’s cafe bakeries with a target to open a further 40 this year.
The brand’s rapid expansion has sparked a backlash with some areas pushing back on new stores to protect the independent bakeries on their high streets.
The Reading Room is now open in Oriel Place, Hampstead.
