Take it to the Bridge

Thanks so much to everyone for your comments on my post on vintage-look fashion: I really love reading your opinions, whether they agree with me or not! Hopefully, this week I will have the time to visit Beyond Retro and report back. Also, there's a week left to enter my comp to win one of Diana's beautiful photos.

 A few weeks ago, I had an hour to kill between a PR showcase and my book group (keeping the left and right hand sides of my brain happy at once: never easy) in Old Street.

Usually, I'd be happy to curl up with my book and a gin and tonic in a bar, but I decided to go into somewhere I'd spotted from the bus.

I thought the Bridge (no website), on Kingsland Road just opposite Dreambagsjaguarshoes, was a pub but I was wrong.

It's actually one of the nicest, strangest places I've drank coffee in a while.

A proper coffee house for those who worship caffeine and sugar, I met a man at the bar who was, brilliantly, writing a longhand letter to a friend who lives abroad. Next to him was the owner, Rico, who bought me a coffee so strong that I think I was buzzing all the way through my group. Not even Eleanor Catton gets me that talkative.

Then he gave me a tour, and I got a bit excited. Here are some fuzzy iPhone pics:

 Obligatory cupcakes!

 There's a huge room upstairs, decorated like an Edwardian train carriage or gentleman's lounge, complete with velvet chairs and well-chosen magazines.

 There's an excess of decoration everywhere, which I liked. It's like drinking coffee in a junk shop.

A great place to kill some time in that part of town.

Where's your favourite place to have coffee? I always need new recommendations!