Forest Café

The building at 3 Bristo Place was constructed during 1899–1900 to a design by Sydney Mitchell and Wilson for the Evangelical Union[7] on the site of a former Baptist Chapel.[8] The category-B listed building has 659 square metres (7,090 sq ft) of floor space and was previously owned by the National Museums of Scotland, who sold the building for £600,000 during 2003.[9][10] The plaque over the door reflects its subsequent use as a Seventh-day Adventist Church, who had purchased the building in 1942[8][11] and used it until 2000.[3]

The space was organised through multiple working groups that were open to the public plus a closed "Core" working group that accepted volunteers who had a longer-term participation. The working groups were run using consensus decision-making process featuring facilitation and hand signals, with minutes saved to an online forum called the "BB". The clerical and financial administration was performed by a paid worker, with building related tasks performed laterly by a Building Manager. The cafe was organised by paid day-time Kitchen Managers (KMs) and voluntary evening KMs, with help from further rotad volunteers.

Free events were held throughout the building regularly, including workshops and skill-shares, music, film, poetry, theatre and readings. There was a community darkroom catering to black and white, alternative and historic process photography. During each summer the venue ran the 'August Forest Fringe', a theatre and alternative arts programme as an alternative complement to the mainstream Edinburgh Festival.[1]

In 2004, the Forest Café became one of only four internet cafés in the United Kingdom to have won a highly recommended citation in the Yahoo! Mail Internet Café Awards.[6]

A volunteer guide booklet called Don't Panic! was drawn up to record and spread information about how The Forest worked.

The Edinburgh University Settlement - the charity that owned the Bristo Place building - went bankrupt in October 2010, and it was announced that the premises were to be sold.[12] The Forest launched a campaign to raise £500,000 to try to buy the building, or buy or rent another property elsewhere in Edinburgh.[13][14]

The upper floors of the Bristo Place building are the former church, the centre piece of which is a Gray & Davison-built pipe organ. This is powered by compressed air and has 16-foot (4.9 m) high pipes. It was originally installed at the Chapel Royal, Dublin Castle in the late 19th century and transferred to its present location in 1900.[15] The organ fell into disrepair[3] until mid-June 2007 when the Debian annual conference—DebConf7—was held in Edinburgh. During the week-long event, sufficient repairs were made by Tore Sinding Bekkedal and others to enable the organ to function again[16][17] at which point it was played by Keith Packard.[18]

In 2008–2009, Project Waldflöte (English: "Forest Flute") was initiated, a musical experiment to control sections of the mechanical musical keyboard via an electronic MIDI interface from a computer. Waldflöte is the designation of one of the organ stops available and was chosen because of the connection of the word "forest". The argumentation of the keyboards was undertaken by Dorkbot Alba without any long-term modification of the original organ.[15]

The old Forest building was squatted on 30 November 2011 by a group of local residents protesting against the closure of several of the city's independent arts spaces including The Forest, though the protest itself was not affiliated to it. The activists stated that they wished to reopen the building to the public.[19] In its new guise, the space played host to several events and affiliate groups before being finally evicted.

The Forest moved to 141 Lauriston Place.

The café served vegetarian cuisine, locally produced organic food,[1] vegan food and Fairtrade drinks.[20] The menu consisted of salads, wraps, chili, burritos, falafel based dishes and soups. Customers were able to pay for hot drinks for others through a Caffè sospeso system which worked on a pay it forward basis, this meant that a customer may pay for a coffee for someone who is unable to afford one themselves. Free Wi-Fi was available for public use, instruments and board games were also provided. There was a free shop where visitors to the café could exchange goods which might otherwise have gone to waste.

Due to local noise restrictions the café was no longer able to provide late night music or loud entertainment, however during the daytime the café was often host to free performances by local musicians, poets or artists. All events were always free of charge and were never ticketed. The renovated basement was home to a pop-up art gallery space which rotated exhibitions on a twice monthly basis.

The Forest maintained close relationships with other alternative community spaces and socially oriented projects in the local area such as the Edinburgh Student Housing Co-operative, and the Swap and Reuse Hub (SHRUB).