I have done a number of post/reviews about coffee shops and I realised I have not done one about Waterstones1. Located on the High Street on the same building as the former Palisades and future largest Primark in Europe and near the Bullring.
When they had their refit they removed the costa coffee and replaced it with two different cafes. One the first floor nominally for adults and another on the kid(3rd) floor2.
They have won over my wife over as they offer soya milk for coffee but more importantly do nice line in locally sourced vegan cakes. The only problem is they do seem to run out of the vegan cakes very quickly. Much to my wife’s chagrin.
It is a very smart move on their part. It good café and it situated in a busy book store. I always buy from them when I get the chance. It is part of its community style. It host events in the coffee shop. Bookclubs, music performances and story times (for both young adult and children) happen regularly. One thing I am disappointed with that they had stopped doing their writing group and board game nights. I am mostly disappointed with myself as due to my shift work I could not make it when the events were on. I am not surprised they canceled the event due to lack of interest though. But it must have been disheartening to people involved.
I feel the need to support them now that amazon is undercutting both the independent book and chain stores in the uk. There was two indie book shops in Birmingham. Ian Allan Books and second hand books3.
Suffice to say I like the New(ish) Waterstones. I frequent it more than Birmingham Central Library4 now. Great coffee, great atmosphere, great staff and great cakes. You cannot go wrong with Waterstones cafe.
The only down side with having such a nice cafe in book store is I have a tendency to buy more books than I can read.
Oh well.
Ad XO
- Note now has no apostrophe. Though the sign at the top of the high street store still does. Mind you the height of the sign might possibly be contributing factor to this.
- But should you really give coffee to kids? I guess the answer is now yes.
- The second hand book store has closed down sadly. This dead end led me down the rabbit hole of chain books shop vs indies vs Amazon. One of the reasons this post took over four months to complete. But I came back and culled the dead wood. On the other hand I do want to visit the Walsall book shop.
- Due to the hours I works I find it difficult to get the Central Library with it current opening times.