In a corner of Tooting Common, a growing community in Balham get their coffee from the back of a Renault F4.
Beginning four years ago, Ben Palmer of Trailside Coffee serves 100 to 300 coffees a day from the bowels of Renée, a van variant of the world’s first hatchback.
Introduced in 1970, with more than two million made, the Renault F4 quickly became a favourite of tradesmen and small businesses, an economical, compact alternative to industrial vehicles advertised to regular people and holiday-makers as a personal extension of the home.
The same spirit describes Palmer’s success. Wednesdays through Sundays, crowds form at the little van drawn to its simplicity, convience, and nostalgia.
They also come for Palmer. Besides remembering the hundreds of different people who visit him day to day, the small business owner has changed the open space around the van into a meeting spot – somewhere to check in, stop by and say-hello without buying anything.
As a regular Sam put it: “It’s a bit of a community hub.”
With people in Wandsworth seeking less anonymous settings, or places simply to be around others, Trailside’s popularity can be described with the Renault F4’s old advertisement: ‘give a lot, ask little’.
Watch below for an interview with Palmer.
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