The signs are everywhere: boarded up shops, empty pubs and vacant high streets.

But scattered across neighbourhoods everywhere in London are small pockets of vibrancy: the local coffee shop.

"I'd say it's nearly as good as going to the pub for a pint," Jayke Mangion, an Australian café owner, told the ABC.

"There's been a little bit of comfort in knowing your local cafes, being able to have that one or two minutes to converse with your barista who knows your coffee, who knows your name, as well as potentially somebody that might be waiting out the street as well for coffee."

The local café has become the meeting point for many as strict lockdown measures endure — it's one of the few legal pleasures left.

Mr Mangion, from Kyneton in Central Victoria, has a bevy of cafes in south-west London.

He opened Brickwood Coffee & Bread in Clapham in 2013 — leading a run on modern Australian-style brunches in the city.

It was part of a surge in independent coffee shops in London that saw the numbers grow from around 50 in 2010 to more than 500 at the start of 2020.

But COVID-19 has stopped them in their tracks.

"[It hit us] like a sledgehammer," he recalled of when lockdown hit the UK in March 2020.

"We had to close our doors.

Normally the 60 chairs in his Clapham café would be full, with lines out the door, but now the chairs are stacked upon tables collecting dust.

Dozens of his 100-plus staff across multiple venues were put on furlough, unsure when they will return to work.

'It's not sustainable'

When they were allowed to reopen during late Summer last year, he called around and found most of his staff had left London and were now scattered around Europe and regional England having returned home during the first lockdown.

"We've had to pivot to a takeaway only like all places, and it's a really, really difficult business model because when you look at the nitty gritty: It's unviable, it's not sustainable," Mr Mangion said.

"But we're just in survival mode on a day-to-day basis."

Last Monday British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his government's roadmap out of lockdown for England — but places like Brickwood are not expecting customers to be inside the shop again until mid-May at the earliest.

"We need something to be clear and coherent from the government for us to be able to plan ahead because you know you might be planning for a more permanent closure, unfortunately."

He says Government incentive schemes have helped — but in his case have been passed on to pay the rent.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

When lockdown first began in March 2020, Mr Mangion found himself with an even bigger problem: a shortage of bread.

"We just started baking bread for ourselves, out of necessity," Mr Mangion said.

Bakers had been laid off work and suppliers had shut their doors.

"My mate Jayke called me, just literally, out of the blue, saying that the baker that he is using were closing," Chris Brumby, his Australian business partner said.

Having taken the lease on an old chip factory, the pair set about turning it into a bakehouse to supply the cafes.

"We then just put ads up for bakers within 24 hours, we had 100 applications," Mr Brumby, who also owns successful pie catering service MyPie, told the ABC.

"Rather than being closed, you know, depressing [and] worrying about things that we have no control of — this was a little bit of hope and us being put in a position where we could pivot and we could be proactive to try to do something," Mr Mangion added.

"That was our survival, I suppose."

A shortage of bread baskets led them to improvise, but now the bakehouse is the most successful part of the business.

"So, we are doing around 200-250 loaves a night," Mr Brumby said, which supplies between 25 and 30 cafes.

"The first delivery van out at two in the morning, next one goes at six, and we're at capacity already.

"We need to buy another van, we need to buy a bigger mixer — at least one, maybe two more!"

Small win in a once in 300-year recession

Not only do they supply other cafes, but they have opened a thriving takeaway shopfront in the old office on the industrial site.

"[Coming] from Central Victoria, I mean you would always, you know after footy and stuff on Saturday night, you would go and just knock on the bakery door and we get out the pies and everything like that," Mr Mangion said.

"So for us it was a no-brainer just to open that and it seems like that was really well-received."

It's a small win for these small businesses as the UK staggers through a once in 300-year recession.

From the minute doors open on a Saturday morning, the lines of customers start queuing down the street for the bakehouse — despite sub-zero temperatures.

Sometimes customers who are shielding themselves from COVID-19 will drive up in cars and hold up their order sign to the window.

Friends and neighbours greet each other as they pick up their coffees and loaves of bread before heading home.

In many ways, it's situation normal.

And for this nation of tea drinkers, Mr Mangion hopes a post pandemic world might work in his favour.

"Hopefully there's a few more coffee drinkers than normal after we can get back to normal."