Get on your bike for a coffee
First green bicycle cafe offers ride-in service for lunch baskets plus a dynamo stool to recharge mobile phones
PARIS is to get its first green bicycle cafe with the opening next weekend of the Exki Coffee-bike beside Opéra Garnier in the 9th arrondissement.
Aimed at users of the Velib’ public hire bikes, the coffee shop will feature a dynamo bike-stool that customers can pedal to recharge their mobiles.
Just as burger fans can get a drive-in burger, cyclists will be able to “ride in and pick up” a ready-made lunch basket without even getting off their bikes. However, unlike the burgers, the Exki lunch will be made with fresh and natural products and will include a choice of salads, sandwiches or ready-made meals.
The Belgian food chain is known for its green menus with cutlery made from eco-friendly bamboo but has also offered social welfare deals such as its "soupe solidaire" where customers pay for a bowl of soup for someone else.
It already has several cafes in the Ile-de-France but the Coffee-bike cafe in Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin is the first to be targeted at cyclists.
France’s first bicycle cafe opened last year in Lyon, with La Bicycletterie, and has since been joined by the Café-Vélo in Grenoble.
