{"id":763852,"date":"2026-09-08T10:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T10:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/763852\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T10:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T10:38:10","slug":"leaders-gardens-tennis-coach-faces-match-point-on-his-cafe-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/763852\/","title":{"rendered":"Leader\u2019s Gardens tennis coach faces match point on his caf\u00e9 bid"},"content":{"rendered":"

A tennis coach at Leader\u2019s Gardens in Putney, is just over \u00a32,000 short of the \u00a310,000 he needs to reopen the park\u2019s caf\u00e9 as Caf\u00e9 Lacey.<\/p>\n

Leader\u2019s Gardens, Dylan Lacey says, \u201cis where I work, live and socialise.\u201d He has coached tennis there for years, and until it closed at the end of August, also taught PE at Oasis Academy Putney.<\/p>\n

The caf\u00e9 previously known as Loo Loo\u2019s was run for more than 20 years by Lynne and Amy. Lacey calls them \u201cthe heartbeat\u201d of both the caf\u00e9 and the park. They decided to move on, and that\u2019s what created the opening for his plan.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a stranger buying a failed business. It\u2019s the park\u2019s own tennis coach trying to keep something loved going.<\/p>\n

\"Dylan<\/p>\n

Dylan has already spent his own money on the renovation: gutting the old kitchen, ripping up the floor and clearing out the old units, breaking the shutter in the process, he says. His sister Martha, a working barista in Somerset, is moving to London to run the caf\u00e9 day to day as head barista and manager.<\/p>\n

He wants the caf\u00e9 to feel like the ones he loves in Biarritz and San Sebasti\u00e1n, with the same buzz he finds in New York. Quality is the point, he says: \u201cFrom the mug you drink from to the seat you sit on.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of what\u2019s raised so far is safe, though. Kickstarter\u2019s rules make this all-or-nothing: if the campaign doesn\u2019t hit the full \u00a310,000 by 17 September, backers are not charged and Lacey gets nothing. So far, 94 backers have pledged \u00a37,737.<\/p>\n

Backers can pledge through \u201cI bought a cafe last week\u201d<\/a> on Kickstarter before it closes on 17 September. If the target isn\u2019t reached, nobody is charged, and the half-finished caf\u00e9 stays as it is.<\/p>\n

\"Dylan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tennis coach at Leader\u2019s Gardens in Putney, is just over \u00a32,000 short of the \u00a310,000 he needs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-763852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}