The Reading café, YayLo, has been subjected to vandalism and anti-social behaviour.

Employees at the eatery, located on Cross Street, were shocked when they arrived to open the premises at around 8am on July 25 to find grey paint splattered across the shop front.

Presumed to be done in the early hours of the morning, the paint and graffiti covered the windows and onto the front door of the adjacent flat.

Although the café sustained most of the damage from the vandalism, the owner of YayLo believes that the flat adjacent to the shop was the direct target of the anti-social behaviour.

Richard Horner, who has recently celebrated the cafe's third birthday said: “When one of my employees, Natalie, arrived at the café she was shocked to see the mess and immediately contacted me.

“The paint was still wet so we believe it may have happened around 6am.

“It’s really disappointing but luckily the council was very helpful and immediately sent their anti-graffiti squad out to clean it up and they got rid of a bulk of the mess.

“It was actually the council’s refuge removal men who first clocked the damage and let the council know. They have handled it very well.”

Pictures of the café prior to the clean-up show that vandals wrote the words ‘Brothel 26A’ on the front of the café, alongside a mobile number in grey paint.

“It was a huge inconvenience,” Richard explained. “It’s not the first time however that we have been subjected to graffiti, we’ve had to deal with it a few times.”

Members of a Reading community Facebook Page have apparently stated that there were a number of similar incidents that happened over the course of Wednesday night/Thursday morning.

“We are all completely in the dark about why this happened. The only upside however is that we didn’t have to close and although it is challenging and has caused a bit of a mess, everyone is ok.”

A spokesperson from Reading Borough Council said: "One of the Council’s town centre cleaning staff came across the vandalism during their rounds and called it into the office at 7.15am on Thursday morning.

"As the graffiti was deemed to be offensive, our graffiti team were on site within the hour and had cleaned the premises by 11am.

"Anyone who spots vandalism or graffiti in Reading, especially if it is offensive, can alert the Council by using the Love Clean Reading app, which is constantly monitored."