What is The Waiting Room?

When I ask my fellow students about bagels, a deeply important conversation topic I know, The Waiting Room on Deptford High Street is sure to be mentioned. In what looks like a dilapidated building (but don’t all the best places look so) under the bridge, with their faded yellow awning and two deck chairs outside, is my hidden secret. 

The second you step in you’re hit with the smell of freshly ground coffee and grease. Each wall is covered in framed pictures of anything and anyone. The sense of home hits you. The organised clutter and the low hum of 80s music is accompanied by the loudest coffee machine known to man. To be perfectly candid, my first time in The Waiting Room was just as glamorous as the look of it. 

It was 8am, my American roommate's old friend, Hayley, had just landed in London and I was on my way home from a night out. Coincidently, myself and Hayley found ourselves on the same train into Deptford station where the lovely roomie was waiting for us. With one mention of vegan bagels, I was sold. 

Maybe it was my self inflicted state, maybe it was the food, who knows. But one bite of this bagel and I was restored. The bagel was toasted to perfection, the vegan sausage was grilled and slightly charred with a layer of melted vegan cheese over it all. 

To add to this experience, the staff were hilarious. Constantly cracking jokes with each other and softly singing to the music. Two were music students that can kill any coffee order, another was a tech assistant at the West End theater, our bagel chef had just moved here from Romania with her son and yet here they were in this little vegan restaurant/cafe making me feel like royalty in last night's clothes nursing a hangover of all hangovers. 

In a world where bagels are often relegated to a quick lunch snack, The Waiting Room elevates them into an art form. Am I being dramatic? Probably. But that’s allowed, especially when bagels are involved. 

Lish〆