People visiting Southampton often say how much they love The Art House and how they wish there was something like us in their city.
So, why isn’t there?

Frankly – cafes are a high risk business at the best of times, and making ethical and creative choices rather than financial ones makes it all the more difficult.

That is why we always knew that we were going to need to do more than sell cakes and coffees to keep going, and why we’ve managed to beat the 1 year, 2 year, 5 year and 10 year records for our industry, making us a bit of a rare unicorn as a cafe, much less a community-run, veggie one.

We did this by asking for help when we needed it.

Summertime is a quiet time for us, as many of the kind of folks who like The Art House are also people who like festivals, travelling, walking, picnicking, gardening and being outdoors. We also have about 15% of our custom from students, who go home for the summer.

Every time the weather improves, our cafe takings nosedive – it has been this way for 13 summers now.

This year, we managed to stave off the slump for longer with all sorts of creative moneymaking ideas, but the past three weeks have been, frankly, not good.

We need to make up our shortfall for August so that we can stride rather than limp into the Autumn season.

This is where you come in.

Our summer fundraising target for this year is a whopping £25K and we have raised nearly £9K of it already. We need this week to get more money flowing in, as the bills are starting to pile up.

Donate now using PayPal or click here for other ways to donate

If you can help, please do – any amount, no matter how small, helps us and encourages us as this time of year is quite emotionally taxing for our crew.

Everything you put in will be used directly, today, to pay a vital bill and keep our doors open. We promise to spend your money wisely and frugally!

Donating today will make you a part of another summer success story, and when you see our amazing events programme you will know that you, personally, were a part of making that happen.

If you can’t help financially, we understand and invite you to share our fundraising page on Facebook or Twitter.