A fundraising drive to help an ethical vegan café recover financially after a break in at the weekend has smashed its £1,000 target.

Burglars smashed their way into the Black Cat Café in Clarence Road, Lower Clapton on Friday night, and stole £180 cash and the till.

Since a vegan blogger and customer started an appeal on JustGiving just four days ago, over £1,600 has been raised.

They said: “This JustGiving page has been set up not only to help Black Cat reopen quickly, but to show them how much their local community and vegans everywhere cherish what they do.”

Daisy Buckthorpe, one of four managers who run the café as a workers’ co-op, told the Gazette: “It’s a bad thing that’s happened to us but we are really grateful for the support we have got from our customers. The community has really helped us with all their beautiful comments.”

The money will go towards repairing the front door, replacing the stolen cash and till, and covering revenue lost “due to the cafe being closed on its busiest day of the week”.

Black Cat Café replaced the volunteer-run vegan Pogo Café which closed after eight years in 2013.