The Bad Ass Café

Attached paired gable-fronted two-bay two-storey former industrial building over basement, built c.1950, with shopfront to front (east) elevation. Now in use as public house and restaurant. Sawtooth roof having north-facing lights and cast-iron rainwater goods. Smooth rendered walls. Square-headed window opening with masonry sills and steel windows to first floor. Shopfront comprising square-headed window opening having steel windows over rendered stall riser, rendered fascia, square-headed door opening in recessed porch with half-glazed timber door and tiled threshold. Located to west side of Crown Alley, south of Temple Bar Square.

Crown Alley, formerly a narrow, irregular passageway connecting Temple Bar and Dame Street, was laid out in the early eighteenth century. Following the construction of the Ha’penny Bridge and Merchants’ Hall the Wide Street Commissioners took the opportunity to widen and improve the passageway. From the mid-nineteenth century it was characterised by stores and warehouses of brown brick with granite carriage arches and loading bays. This building is an interesting later industrial building that functioned as a laundry. It retains a number of notable features including the sawtooth glazed roof and replacement steel Crittall windows, characteristic of industrial buildings of the period.