Repair Cafe

Southampton Repair Cafe is a place where people can bring broken items to be fixed by our expert repairers at the same time as having a cuppa and some homemade cake and meeting like-minded others. See our blog for for more about Repair Cafe in Southampton.

We repair all sorts of things including: Electrical items, Computers, Jewellery, Bikes, Clothes, Woodwork, metal work, furniture and gluing. If we can’t fix it we may be able to advise you what to do next. We have been running since 2014 and have tackled nearly 3000 items with a 70% success rate. Please note: we can’t repair microwave ovens owing to safety concerns, and at present we lack a mechanical clock/watch repairer.

We are now running two cafes per month (except Jan and Dec) across four sites in the city.
First Saturday of month alternating:
Freemantle Baptist Church, Testwood Rd, SO15 8RL (Feb/Apr/Jun/Aug/Oct/Dec) and
St James by the Park Parish Hall, 1 Colebrook Ave, S015 5NS (Mar/May/Jul/Sep/Nov).
Third Saturday of month alternating:
St Denys Community Centre, Priory Rd, SO17 2JZ (Jan/Mar/May/Jul/Sep/Nov) and
Immaculate Conception Church hall, Portswood Rd, SO17 3SB (Feb/Apr/Jun/Aug/Oct).
Totton repair cafe is run by one of our volunteers – for more details see their facebook page.
All Repair cafes run from 10.30-13.00. Just turn up for repair or a cuppa! We welcome cash donations. Note that cafes at Freemantle and Shirley are generally quieter, so if you don’t want to wait so long to be seen, bring your repair to one of these!

Full list of dates on our home page

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Also see the video below about our activities made by film students at Solent University who attended our Repair Cafe events during 2021. We thank them for creating it.

Get Involved – Volunteers Needed

We always welcome more volunteers, both repairers and general helpers so assist with the smooth running of the event. We particularly need additional reception help at Freemantle and with out Facebook page. Come along to one of the events or contact us via email on repaircafe[at]transitionsouthampton.org

Our Goals

  • Reduce waste and save resources by repairing instead of throwing items away
  • Reskilling by sharing repair skills
  • Encouraging a circular economy
  • Create a community hub for ideas and the local community, building community resilience

The Results

  • Over 100 events held
  • Nearly 3000 items tackled, 70% of which were repaired or advice was given
  • We have reached at least 1000 people.