5 years ago... easyEverything opens first net café

18.06.99: The first of a chain of internet cafés, easyEverything, opens in London on Monday, offering customers what it claims is the cheapest public Internet access in the UK.

In conjunction with Hewlett-Packard (HP), Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder and owner of low-cost airline, easyJet, said he is offering customers a one-stop outlet that is an alternative to high-street shopping or mail order catalogues.

Haji-Ioannou is also predicting that there will be 2,000 terminals across London by the end of the summer.

18.06.04: Within a year Stelios was opening internet cafés all around London and over Europe. The business boomed as travellers, holidaymakers, students, city folk on the go and others from all walks of life suddenly realised they couldn't walk the length of The Strand without succumbing to the temptation to check their webmail account.

But the meteoric rise has not been without controversy. Stelios found himself in hot water over accusations that his chain of cafés was illegally burning CDs for its customers.

In 2001 Stelios also put half his cafés up for sale before announcing a series of deals with high street shops to location-share with them.