Cahoots: Postal Office 'first of many'

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New opening: Cahoots: Postal Office opened in October (image: Johnny Stephens)

The latest opening from multisite operator Inception Group is the 'first of many', co-founder Charlie Gilkes told The Morning Advertiser.

Inside an old railway arch within the Borough Yards development on the edge of Borough Market, guests enter Cahoots: Postal Office through the shopfront, greeted by a postie before being directed through a post box into an immersive sorting area.

A number of cocktails are on offer with some being sent via a pneumatic tube system, shooting the tipples overhead and delivered to guests from the bar though a series of air-powered tubes.

Elsewhere inside the site, seating arrangements include repurposed mail sack chairs and seats within a converted mail cart with capacity for 80 seated guests or 120 standing for private events.

British institution

Inception Group's venues:

Barts 

Bunga Bunga 

Cahoots Underground 

Cahoots: Postal Office 

Cahoots Ticket Hall

Control Room B 

Maggie's

Mr Fogg's Apothecary

Mr Fogg's City Tavern

Mr Fogg's Gin Parlour

Mr Fogg's Hat Tavern & Gin Club

Mr Fogg's House of Botanicals

Mr Fogg's Pawnbrokers

Mr Fogg's Residence

Mr Fogg's Society of Exploration

Mr Fogg's Tavern

Suspicious rattling parcels, carrier pigeons as well as an exotic airmail freight from Cuba containing Winston Churchill’s favourite cigars all feature in the décor.

The latest venue from Inception Group opened this month (October). Co-founder Gilkes told The Morning Advertiser: “The post office is another great British institution and the scoundrels have taken over the Tube network in Soho.

“We thought in Borough it would be great to do something that is part of the same collection but again like Fogg’s, we don’t want to be a chain so it’s being a collection not a chain, we talk about the Cahoots network.

“There’s a similar narrative with the scoundrels and 1940s but with a different great British institution – the post office.”

Immersive venue

Gilkes previously said the opening would be the group’s “most immersive venue to date”, transporting guests back to 1946.

On potential future plans, he told The Morning Advertiser: “There will be many more, both in London and beyond.”

Last year, the group signed a lease at Borough Yards while the business also secured £6.7m backing from OakNorth in 2023 to help fund new sites and extend existing facilities the firm had with the bank.

Here’s a look at the site:

Guests are greeted by a postie before entering through the post box doors.

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image: Johnny Stephens

Cahoots: Postal Office is Inception Group's "most immersive venue to date".

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A mezzanine level is home to The Dead Letter Depot.

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image: Johnny Stephens

The walls are adorned in postal paraphernalia.

 

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Beloved post office cat Maurice features in the site.

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Drinks on offer include This Way Up with Patron Silver Tequila; Signed, Sealed, Delivered with Bombay Sapphire gin; and Par Avion with Grey Goose L’Original vodka.

 

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image: Johnny Stephens

A number of the cocktails are delivered via a pneumatic tube system from the bar to guests at tables.

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image: Johnny Stephens