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This picture shows how closely the cabmen's shelters were integrated with cab stands. The kitchen window, flanked by menus, has been adapted for takeaway service. A platform allows customers to reach the high window sill.
Source:
Cabmen's Shelter, Wellington Place. One of Thirteen Cabmen's Shelters in London run by the Cabmen's Shelter Fund. Photograph by Oxyman, 19 April 2008.
Wikipedia: Taxicabs of the United Kingdom: Cabmen's Shelter Fund. Click here to view source.
Bloomsday for Cab Drivers / 27
The Cabmen's Shelter / 5
Before the cabmen's shelters appeared various religious organizations operated "cabman's clubs". These were usually located in old pubs or other disused buildings remote from the cab stands. The tea was free, but the moralizing was dispensed with a heavy hand.
Drivers with a sense of professional pride or self respect preferred ordinary coffee houses, "for cabmen are quite as fond of coffee as decent mechanics" said a cab driver quoted in Charles Dickens's magazine All the Year Round (1860):
The Cabmen's Shelter Fund made no attempt to save or reform its customers beyond banning alcohol from the premises, and since they charged for meals they were not seen as charities.
The 'penny bank' and the 'sick fund' [operated by the clubs] may be all very well, because the member pays for all he gets, but the 'free tea' provided every Sunday afternoon always sticks in my throat. While I'm able to do my work and pay my way, I don't want anything given to me. I ain't a child. If the seven hundred members are not able to do this, they'd better say so, and either throw up driving, or get the sixpence a mile [i.e., the legal London cab fare] altered to eightpence."