After frequenting the Brickwood in Clapham Common, I had rather high expectations for this place after the lockdown restrictions lightened in London during the pandemic. It's tiny, by comparison, but the inside provides enough of an oasis to ensure you'll have a chill morning/ afternoon coffee sesh.
Okay, now for the bad news. Sometimes, the people here aren't the friendliest (to put it lightly), but if you frequent enough hipster-ish coffee shops, you get used to that. However, there are a few setbacks to the new way of running things. First of all, as with many businesses now, they are contactless-only; well, they've always been contactless-only, which is annoying for those who only carry cash. They also require that you download the Magic Stamp app if you want to accrue those loyalty points towards a free coffee; which sucks if your phone is running out of space, and you have a million other loyalty rewards apps on there, already.
My most recent beef with this place is that, no one actually explained to me how to redeem the free coffee once I had enough points, so when I went to present my phone to the barista- assuming that it worked like all the other rewards apps and would notify the staff member that I had a free one- he stamped it, starting a whole new card. I asked him why it didn't allow me to redeem it, and he explained that I had to complete a series of steps to do so- which may be obvious to some, but to those of us who have never used it before... Was he understanding and let me redeem for my free coffee? No.
The prices can also be pretty up there for the food, but to be fair, it is pretty darn good. So, I'll let that one slide. Speaking of, most of the food here is pretty amazing. The Vege Burrito, alone, is worth coming back for again and again. The coffee... not so much. And, on the last few visits here, I noticed a severe shortage of visible pastries.
I won't be a bad sport and tell you where to find better, but I will say... It's not far. read more
