Popular coffee shop Canvas Coffee closes Portsmouth and Southsea railway station cafe and moves into city centre

Canvas Coffee, a social enterprise run by Pravin Isram, has been at Portsmouth and Southsea Railway Station for seven years.

The business was set up through Prav’s love of coffee and desire to create a community hub, giving work to those in early recovery from drug and alcohol addiction.

The shop gained a following for its good work and ethically sourced quality coffee, which it ground on the premises. And it was especially popular with commuters.

However, the coronavirus pandemic forced its closure earlier this year.

After lockdown was lifted, the pandemic also led to a huge drop in passing trade as people stopped using trains and started working from home.

Now, after months searching for the right premises and finding new ways to survive such as delivering coffee and selling it online, the business has opened a pop-up in Cascades Shopping Centre in Portsmouth city centre.

The station shop closed on October 30 and the new pop-up opened just before the newest wave of restrictions, leading to its temporary closure over Christmas.

But Prav says he is hopeful for the future – and has instead been using the free time to help others by doing what he does best – making coffee.

He said: ‘For most businesses in the hospitality industry 2020 has been a write-off.

‘Lockdown two ended up delaying the opening of the new pop-up, so with time on our hands we wanted to do something for the Christmas period that could help make an impact.

‘We have been roasting coffee for five years now so we decided to source a coffee for Christmas and donate 100 per cent of the profits to charity and local causes in the city.

‘We ran a poll on our Instagram to get people’s feedback on where we should donate the money.

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‘We liked the idea because customers get a bag of coffee and get to give back at the same time.’

The coffee, which has been created with help of Canvas Coffee’s importers Raw Material, costs £9.25 for a 250g bag.

Prav added: ‘It’s a delicious coffee from Werema Village, Timor-Leste which we cupped earlier in the year and it has notes of candied apple, hazelnut and jam.

‘We hope to raise £1,000 and we’ll be following up with a further blogpost announcing the totals raised and where the funds went.’

Prav hopes to reopen the pop-up shop in January. To order coffee go to canvascoffee.co.uk

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