London – A bowl of sugary cereal offers both a shot of childhood nostalgia and a quick way to satisfy your hunger. Now brothers Alan and Gary Keery are banking on people’s fondness for cereals for their new venture, the Cereal Killer Café.
The café is a careful study in nostalgia, with interiors inspired by Lucky Charms. The design includes cereal art, colourful Formica furniture and vintage televisions screening cartoons from the 1980s and 1990s. Other elements of that era pop up with vintage magazines available to read and a playlist that includes hit songs, film soundtracks and tv theme songs.
The brothers have sourced cereals from across the globe, with English, American, South African, South Korean and French cereals on the shelves. Customers can choose from three sizes, priced £2.50–3.50 (€3.15–4.40, $3.90–5.50), select from regular or premium milk such as chocolate, strawberry or nut milk, or even have a cereal cocktail – a blend of cereals – such as the Double Rainbow, which is made up of Trix, Fruity Pebbles, marshmallows and strawberry milk.
‘We are playing on nostalgia,’ Gary tells LS:N Global. ‘Cereal used to be so much fun – the boxes had a little toy in them – but everything has become healthier and there are no toys any more. We are trying to have fun with it again.’
The Cereal Killer Café is emblematic of Newstalgia, which we examined in our macrotrend The Sharded Self. Nostalgia is happening faster, so much so that we are reminiscing about eating our childhood cereals when they are still available to buy. For more, see the macrotrend.