Our Story
How a small delicatessen on Trafalgar Road became a family of park cafes across South East London.
Our Story
Four decades of food, parks & community
From a small Greenwich delicatessen in 1983 to a family of cafés in some of South East London's best-loved parks, the story of Pistachios has always been about more than coffee and food.
It is a story of family, friendship, ambition, loss, resilience and reinvention — and of an idea that continued to evolve through more than four decades.
1983 · Where it all began
A young couple, a Greenwich delicatessen
The Pistachios story began in 1983, when Aysin Djemil and his wife Sally opened the first Pistachios — a small delicatessen at 115a Trafalgar Road in Greenwich.
Their belief was simple: serve great coffee and freshly prepared homemade food, and create somewhere people genuinely enjoyed visiting. There was no grand plan to build a chain of cafés, or to one day move into London's parks — it was simply a young couple building a business together.
But that little Greenwich delicatessen planted the seed for everything that followed.
The Greenwich years
Pistachios begins to grow
Through the years that followed, Pistachios became increasingly established in Greenwich. The menu developed, customers became regulars, and the business began to find an identity of its own.
Aysin and Sally discovered something that would remain at the heart of Pistachios for decades: a good café isn't simply somewhere to buy something to eat or drink — it can become part of people's everyday lives. Familiar faces, conversations over coffee, friendships that grew. Pistachios became part of the neighbourhood, and success brought the confidence to try something new.
Blackheath
Food, coffee & jazz
The next chapter took Pistachios to Blackheath. The business continued to evolve — but Blackheath brought another dimension. Downstairs, in the basement, was a jazz bar.
The café atmosphere upstairs was complemented by music below, somewhere that could change character as the day moved into the evening. Food, coffee, conversation and jazz became part of the experience — a willingness to experiment and try something different rather than simply repeating what had worked before. And it worked.
Success & ambition
Success after success
Through the Greenwich and Blackheath years, Pistachios kept growing. What had started as a small delicatessen was becoming an established independent café business. With that success came bigger ambitions, and Aysin and Sally began considering taking Pistachios beyond South East London.
The next destination was going to be Canterbury — the chance to take the concept they had created together into a completely new area. Plans for expansion were taking shape. Then life intervened.
When everything changed
Sally
At a time when the business appeared to be moving from one success to another, Sally was diagnosed with a brain stem tumour. Suddenly, cafés, expansion plans and business ambitions became insignificant compared with what the family was facing.
The plans for Canterbury were put aside. The priority was no longer where Pistachios might open next — it was Sally and the family. After living with her illness, Sally sadly died in 1998.
She had been there when Pistachios began in 1983 and shared the journey from that first little Greenwich delicatessen through the years of growth that followed. Her contribution is far more than a footnote in the history of the business. Sally was there when the Pistachios story began.
1998–2000 · A period of change
Finding a different direction
After Sally's death, life inevitably changed. The expansion that had once seemed to be gathering momentum no longer followed the path originally imagined. There was a period of adjustment, and a need to find a different direction — personally as well as professionally.
Eventually, an unexpected opportunity appeared. It wasn't another high street. It wasn't Canterbury. It was an empty building in a park — and it would change the direction of Pistachios completely.
2000 · A new beginning
Manor House Gardens
In 2000, an opportunity arose at Manor House Gardens in Lewisham. The empty park building offered the possibility of creating something completely different from the Greenwich and Blackheath cafés that had come before.
By this time, Aysin was in a new relationship with Karen. With Karen's help and encouragement — including a small financial contribution towards getting the new venture started — and with the encouragement and support of Aysin's friends Fred and Martin, the empty building began its transformation into somewhere warm, clean and welcoming. It wasn't simply another Pistachios café. It represented a new beginning.
Into the park
Pistachios in the Park is born
The menu didn't start from scratch. Aysin took dishes and ideas that had worked in the Greenwich and Blackheath cafés and adapted them for an entirely different environment. A park café needed to work for everyone — families with children, dog walkers, friends meeting for coffee, parents coming from the playground, and people who simply wanted somewhere welcoming to sit and enjoy the park.
Among the dishes that became part of the identity were the signature Pistachios in the Park Club Sandwich and the wonderfully named Tuna Priest. Manor House Gardens showed that a park café could be far more than a kiosk selling tea and ice cream. It could be a destination, a meeting place, a family café, a place for events — a community hub that genuinely belonged to the park and the people around it. That became the philosophy: every café should become part of its park and part of its community.
2009 · Back to Greenwich
East Greenwich Pleasaunce
In 2009, Pistachios in the Park returned to Greenwich — but this time in one of the area's much-loved green spaces. A new café building opened in East Greenwich Pleasaunce, and Pistachios in the Park became part of its story.
There was something fitting about the return. More than twenty-five years after Aysin and Sally opened the original Pistachios on Trafalgar Road, the name had come back to Greenwich in an entirely new form. Today, Debora and Gary continue that tradition, bringing their own character and energy to the café and the community around it.
2012 · Built from scratch
Hilly Fields
The next major chapter came at Hilly Fields. This time, rather than transforming an existing building, a new café was created from scratch, bringing Fred and Ruth into the next stage of the story. Fred's connection with Pistachios went back to the early Manor House days; now he and Ruth had the chance to create a café with a personality entirely of its own.
Opening in 2012, the café sits in one of Lewisham's most distinctive parks, with views stretching across London. It quickly became another community meeting place for families, walkers, runners, dog owners, friends and local residents — once again, part of the life of the park around it.
2013 · The next chapter
Don & Lynn at Manor House
After more than a decade of establishing Pistachios in the Park at Manor House Gardens, another chapter began. In 2013, Don and Lynn took over the running of the Manor House Gardens café, embracing both the Pistachios concept and the community around it.
Over the years they have developed Manor House in their own way, bringing their personalities, commitment and passion for quality to the original Pistachios in the Park location. Today, Don and Lynn are the joint owners and operators of the Manor House Gardens café — continuing the story in the very park where Pistachios in the Park began.
Three parks, three personalities
Never identical copies
One of the most important parts of the Pistachios philosophy is that the cafés were never intended to become identical corporate copies of one another. Each park is different, each community is different, and each café has developed its own personality.
Manor House Gardens — Don & Lynn. Hilly Fields — Fred & Ruth. East Greenwich Pleasaunce — Debora & Gary. They share a name, a history and a philosophy, but each café reflects the people who run it and the community it serves. And that is exactly how Pistachios in the Park was intended to work.
More than four decades later
The philosophy remains
Much has changed since Aysin and Sally first opened the doors of that little delicatessen on Trafalgar Road in 1983. The locations have changed, the menus have evolved, and coffee culture has changed enormously. Children who once visited Pistachios with their parents have grown up and returned to the parks with families of their own.
But the basic philosophy remains remarkably familiar: good coffee, freshly prepared food, a warm welcome, and a café that feels part of the community around it. What began at 115a Trafalgar Road, Greenwich eventually found its natural home in the parks of South East London. There was never a master plan spanning four decades — Pistachios evolved through family, friendships, ambition, difficult times, new opportunities, resilience and reinvention, and through the thousands of customers who made each café part of their everyday lives.
Three parks. Three communities.
One shared story.
Today, Pistachios in the Park is a family of three independently operated cafés with more than four decades of history behind the name.
Serving food, coffee and community since 1983.