A Lewisham teaching assistant is hoping to bring a vintage-style tea room to Catford.

Mum-of-two Jenni Brady, 41, dreams of opening her Truly Splendid tea room as a social enterprise in the town and needs help to set it up.

She said: “I think Catford is a diverse place to live, but the shops and cafes do not represent the diversity of its inhabitants.

“The only option currently is the two Costa coffee shops, which is a huge national chain.

“Back in the 1920s and 1930s, Catford was a glamorous and vibrant town with buildings such as the Hippodrome and the Odeon, luckily the Broadway Theatre still survives in all of its Art Deco glory.”

Jenni has a building in mind in Broadway which she says will take two to three months to fully renovate. The total cost would be just over £30,000.

More than £4,500 has already been pledged by more than 120 people and Jenni is waiting to hear if she has been successful in a bid for a £20,000 Mayor of London High Street Fund.

That would leave her needing just under £6,000 which she hopes to raise from businesses which she would promote on Twitter and Facebook.

She hopes to open in November.

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Of her inspiration to open a tea room, Jenni said: “It has always been a dream of  mine to have my own business based on food, particularly cakes, I am a very keen baker.

“The dream became reality when I walked into a shop in Bridgenorth called Tea & Roses, it was a vintage style living shop and tea room and I was completely smitten. 

“Since then I have never been able to forget it and the desire to create something similar in my local area became all-consuming, I wanted to share that experience on a daily basis.”

Jenni said Truly Splendid would sell hand-crafted items such as cards, gifts and furniture while running community events and providing jobs and choice for customers, making it more than just a cafe.

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