Clock may be ticking for Ziferblat, London's first pay-per-minute café

Ziferblat, the country’s first pay-per-minute café, is facing closure less than three months after opening because of a lease dispute.

The café was issued with an eviction notice by landlords warning that it must leave its Old Street premises within 28 days due to the disputed use of the building.

Ziferblat’s role as a café where customers make their own coffee and food, but pay by the minute, means it falls into a legal grey area between being classed as a “shared workspace” and a venue “selling food and drink”.

Owner Ivan Mitin said: “I came from Russia where sometimes you can rent a space in two hours, but then you know they can kick you away at any moment because law doesn’t mean that much. Here, the process of signing all the papers took us about two months. I thought OK, it is slow but then I will know for sure that we have five years here.

“Now it seems like it’s enforced like in Russia. This landlord just called us a restaurant and thinks we should leave within days.”

Ziferblat’s building has a category B1 lease, for offices and shared workspaces, but the landlord says the tenant is breaching agreed conditions by operating a café.

A spokesperson for Hackney council, which authorises the lease and use of the building, said: “We are investigating to ensure the premises have an appropriate licence.” The landlord Phil Bouette, of Estate Office, declined to comment.