21/52 – Drink, Shop & Do
Drink, Shop & Do, a trendy little café-slash-cocktail-bar, is conveniently located just two minutes walk from London St Pancras. It would be a great place to grab lunch and browse the small shop after a trip to the British Library, and in the evenings it becomes a fashionable destination for arty drinks and the most amazing selection of crafty and silly ‘evening classes’. These activities, many of them free, range from embroidery to Lego Robots and dance classes, and are all designed to be enjoyed with a group of friends and one of the exotic sounding drinks on Drink, Shop & Do’s very classy menu.
(above: they don’t actually have an erotica section, it’s just their witty sign for their downstairs cocktail bar…)
Just twenty minutes from Liverpool Street Station (where I work) I popped along after work on a ridiculously sunny day, and fell in love with the friendly café atmosphere, the high ceiling and the cute but not overdone retro decor.
Also, the gluten free cake. They have three (!) gluten and dairy free concoctions to choose from, and the rose and pistachio cake I chose (with the help of the lovely barista) was actually delicious. Om nom nom. They serve an impressive selection of teas (I chose ‘Windsor Castle’ tea), about twelve different mouthwatering cakes, and all the usual teas, coffees, sandwiches and salads – which all looked, and sounded, amazing!
My tea and cake came to £6, which I thought was a little pricey, but it would be lovely for a treat, and a great place to bring visitors for a cosy chat.
A couple of nights later, I returned to Drink, Shop & Do with my flatmates (and Robbie) to take part in one of the whacky ‘evening classes’, this time a ‘play with clay’ Arnold Schwarzenegger theme! After ordering a couple of cocktails (I shared a ‘sharing jug’ of a mojito-style concoction with Chelsey, which was delicious, and they had a great menu, but Tom and Rob weren’t so impressed with their drinks), we were each given a fistful of clay, a paper plate and some ‘inspiration images’ of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and told to go crazy. Silence fell around our little table as all of us set to work intricately moulding and shaping our tiny Arnies. Even Tom, who had previously declared himself pretty unambiguously to not be in the least interested in clay making, saying “I would literally rather be doing anything else” was soon moulding a bust of Arnold’s face, and repurposing the ice at the bottom of his cocktail as water to facilitate the moulding of the finer features.
It was actually really fun. Not exactly a wild night, but a nice place to relax and chat and unwind with some silly crafts and drinks. I was so proud of my clay creation, and we were all gutted we didn’t win when all the entries got judged at the end of the night!
There are plenty of pubs nearby to grab a drink afterwards (as the bar closes relatively early), and you can easily hop on the underground from St Pancras up until around half past twelve, depending on where you’re going.
I would definitely, definitely recommend Drink, Shop & Do for casual day and night time activities, we had an awesome time and will hopefully be headed back to try out some other activities (I’m so keen to try out a dance class, but I think Tom might draw the line!)
Big Love, PV x
