The owner of a cereal cafe in rapidly gentrifying East London said his business had been unfairly targeted by demonstrators who attacked it over the weekend with smoke bombs and paint.

Gary Keery said in an interview Monday that after he and his twin brother, Alan, opened Cereal Killer Cafe in December, the business received widespread criticism from people who saw the shop as a symbol of the neighborhood’s gentrification. The cafe charges an average of $4.50 per bowl of cereal. The Keerys have defended their right to open the business on Brick Lane in Shoreditch, an area of London once famed for hip, artistic grit and now known for skyrocketing rents and amenities.

But hundreds of protesters who dislike the change attacked the shop on Saturday night, Mr. Keery said. Video taken of the episode shows a group demonstrating outside the cafe while employees barricaded themselves and about 15 patrons, some of them children, inside the store.