Our story
Our building history
Flo’s is housed in a beautiful purpose built building designed by Lana Al Shami. Owned by Oxford City Council, the building has a long history of serving the local community. In its early days it was a family centre. In 2007, Oxfordshire County Council secured Sure Start funding and a brand new building was built in 2008. The County Council has long-term tenure of the building and up till 2017 ran the Children’s Centre that served a wide range of families and people in the local area.
The announcement of the closure of the Children's Centre in 2016 due to budget cuts was deeply saddening for many. It also posed serious challenges for families, parents, carers and children living in the area.
A new hope for our home
Following several months of negotiations led by one of our Founders Annie Davy, local campaigners formed a steering group to support the vision for a locally-managed project initiated by the Nature Effect Community Interest Company.
Supported by local charity Aspire, the community group developed their business plan to create a community-run, enterprise-funded centre that would continue to support families and be sustainable in the longer term.
The Community Benefit Society ‘People Place and Participation Ltd.’ was established in October 2018. The doors to a newly refurbished building were re-opened as Flo’s - The Place in the Park.
The evolution of our Community Hub
Since 2018, Flo’s has grown to a thriving hub managed by the community for the community. We remain a cooperative charitable Community Benefit Society and we are governed by our Members and a board of Trustees.
In 2026 Flo’s has grown to employ over 50 people who, as a team, make sure that Flo’s remains open and accessible 365 days a year.
Flo’s Cafe and Flo’s Refill Shop are now wholly owned and run by our trading subsidiary - Flo’s Trading. The income generated from these activities contribute 45% of Flo’s total income and as such provide significant financial support to our charitable community work.
Profit for Purpose
The income generated from our trading activities in Flo’s Cafe and Flo’s Refill Shop provides significant financial support to our charitable work serving the community, improving equity and protecting the planet.
As a Community Benefit Society we take a carefully balanced approach to our income generation with our core charitable purposes. We do not strive for maximum profit in our trading instead we choose to balance profit and purpose. We call our approach, ‘profit for purpose.’
We know through our data that our profit for purpose model ensures that our activities can deliver significant social returns. In 2024/25 we calculated that for every £1 of income that was generated at Flo’s we were able to deliver £4 worth of social return to the community.
A newly remodeled space and a fresh new look
In Spring 2026, we undertook an ambitious remodeling of Flo’s kitchen and Flo’s Cafe and Refill Shop spaces with support from Oxford County Council, Step Change and a generous private donation.
For the first time since opening, we closed the doors to Flo’s Cafe and Flo’s Refill Shop for a period of five weeks so work could be undertaken safely. We maintained a food and drinks provision from Flo’s Hatch during the closure and were delighted that, despite the disruption, it remained a busy and popular choice to gather for new and existing customers alike.
The result of the renovation work was a greatly improved kitchen for our chefs - replacing the previous small, outdated space not originally designed to cope with the volume and variety of food that Flo’s Cafe offers. Additionally, we upgraded our coffee bar and indoor seating to improve customer experience.
Flo’s Refill Shop benefited from new furniture (a great way to recycle and reuse our old coffee counter!). A redesign of the stock display ensured a clearer, more user friendly shopping experience.
On reopening in May 2026, we also launched our new brand identity. Months in the planning stages, our new visual identity better reflects the vibrancy of our organisation as well as capturing the variety of activities on offer in our community space.
Our colour palette reflects both our nature connection and the playful, bold energy of our family work. Our newly devised logo incorporates our key areas of work and priorities, our cafe, our nature nurseries, our refill shop and our community equity work. We hope that our new identity reflects our informal yet confident approach and our enduring sense of community spirit.
