Sunday 10 May 2015

New cafe/bike shop for Deptford High Street

I've never really quite understood the thing about bike shops with cafes - it's a fact that both bikes and coffee play a major part in my life, but other than parking my bike outside a cafe to have a good strong cappuccino, I find myself somewhat stumped.

But I'm clearly a bit old-school on this; they seem to be popping up all over the country and we've got our own coming to Deptford High Street with London Velo set to open at the end of May.

Aside from being a godsend for anyone who wants to have a chat about their fixie while sipping a flat white, it will certainly be a useful addition for those coffee addicts living in Deptford New Town who otherwise have to schlep all the way down to the Waiting Room for their caffeine fix.


The new shop is right next to Tesco on Deptford High Street, a unit which has been empty for some time, so it's great to see it being brought back into use.


As well as coffee and bicycles, London Velo is promising music, food, free wifi and...beer! They are being ambitious with their opening hours - till 8pm weekday nights, till 10pm Friday and Saturday and 10 till 6 on Sundays. I wholeheartedly support anyone trying to bring a bit more life to the high street outside of the normal shopping hours, so I'll be delighted if they manage to make this work.

Some may suggest that the opening of London Velo will put the high street in a bit of a hipster clinch, what with skate and BMX shop Curve already established down at the far end. 



I haven't written much about Curve ('Deptford's finest Skate BMX & Clothing shop') since it would mean revealing my shocking ignorance of anything to do with aforementioned sports, but again it's great that an empty shop unit is being used for a small, independent business that adds diversity and attracts more footfall to the high street.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

At least it's not another 99p store

Anonymous said...

You were lucky to get the picture outside (future) Velo before the electricity company dug up the High Streets new pavement and replaced it with tar :(

Anonymous said...

Great shop,my son and his friends love it and all v best to its owners, takes real courage to be the first and this guy deserves to succeed.

Anonymous said...

Great to see this type of thing cropping up. will be visiting plenty!

z8000736 said...

Fixie? Schlep? Please don't use words like this, it's not clever, it's not funny and it's not fair on Deptford.

Anonymous said...

The high street is now so fancy, you're almost in Paris.
There were even two (presumably) gypsy accordion players this Saturday plying their trade on each side of the railway bridge... Baiting Chinese tourists with loads of euros????