Coia's Café

Carmine and Amalia Coia, from Filignano in the Italian mountains, opened their café on Dennistoun's Duke Street in 1928, and it has passed down the family in the classic way — to Nicky and Ena in the fifties, to Alfredo and Antonia in the eighties, the third generation running it today. In 2006 they expanded into new premises next door with a deli and takeaway, extending the original landmark without diluting it. Dennistoun has become one of Glasgow's most talked-about neighbourhoods lately; Coia's was the anchor of its high street for the better part of a century before the magazines noticed, serving breakfasts, ice cream and fish suppers to an east-end clientele that never needed telling the place was good.