Our Story

It started with bad coffee and a stubborn idea.

Nadia and Farhan had been friends since university, and for years they'd complained about the same thing: Karachi had great food, but nowhere to sit with it. The coffee was either bad or the space was sterile - all glass and marble, designed to impress rather than welcome. They wanted something different. A place that felt like someone actually lived there.

In 2019, they found a 1960s bungalow on Vine Lane in Clifton that had been sitting empty for two years. The wooden floors were scuffed, the ceilings were high, and there was a courtyard at the back overgrown with jasmine. They kept all of it. They added the espresso machine, the ceramic mugs, the vinyl player in the corner, and enough plants to fill a small greenhouse. Groundwork opened in March 2020 - terrible timing, as it turned out - but by the time the world opened back up, people were ready for exactly this kind of place.

We still bake everything here every morning. The sourdough goes in at 5am. The croissants are done by 7. We haven't changed the original cinnamon roll recipe once, because there was nothing to fix. We're slow on purpose. We think that's worth something.