please empty your brain below

Looks awful, especially the seating in the dining hall.
Don't you mean Whitgift, not Arndale Centre?

dg writes: Yes, sorry, thanks.
Isn't the Whigift due to be redeveloped itself soon? Will it close during the work?
It's a while since I was in Croydon, but unless it has suddenly become hipster (which is not impossible), this could be an indication that upmarket streetfood (since streetfood itself is no new invention) has crossed to the mainstream, the way craftbeer and beards did before it.

No bad thing if the hipster-level quality is retained.
The words 'hipster' and 'Croydon' don't really gel.
Croydon is one of the most miserable, soulless places I've visited in London. Regret to say that this addition will not improve this, but good luck to those who've gained employment as a consequence of its existence.
No bassoon repair workshops?
Disappointing.
Let's be positive about the entrepreneurial spirit displayed here, it's too easy to dismiss something as hipster, and then discover that normal people also are using it. It's much better than derelict land.
I have seen this over the last months being put up. Ok it's covering derelict ground,but, did it have to be painted black?? Most of Croydon is depressing enough,could they not have used brighter colours??
Good to read this. Like many motorway service stations, the central table concept is a good use of space (compared to each place having a few tables of its own), and has the excellent benefit that independent diners - people who have bought their food in a nearby supermarket, or brought it from home - have somewhere to sit and eat.

I'm also pleased to read that the tables and chairs look cheap an cheerful. I'd rather spend money on food than on colour-co-ordinated impractical plastic furniture.
given that 3,500 of the suited and booted are going to be HMRC employees I doubt there will be much prosecco sipping or sushi eating. we can't afford it on public sector pay
Is there no escape from this 'pseuds corner' crap? Here in Newbury, Waitrose have just opened a sushi bar, a concession where one can watch 'Sushi artisans at work' [aka 6 out of 7 looked like immigrants from the land of the rising sun!] Whilst I was bemoaning a manager about the consequent confusion in the vegetable section, eg where are my good old English parsnips, another customer really let rip: 'I spend £200 a week in here and all you have done is mess it up!" It makes me wonder whether, if Brexit sends us all back into woad etc, the vote after all was worth it. Surely there is more to life than the better off squandering their money on over priced tat, whether it be food or not.

Perhaps someone else can explain to me how the supposedly impoverished millennials can afford to live it up in dumps like this.
Hmm. Millennials are not all impoverished. There is plenty of millennial inequality around. Anyone who actually is impoverished might manage better in somewhere other than Waitrose - assuming Newbury has a Lidl or similar.

I have never tried Sushi, and I have no particular wish to, but if I ever did, I rather think I would somehow expect it to be made by Japanese people. Nothing odd about that, surely?
My experience from Friday is that it's brilliant if the group can't agree on what to eat. And, to be fair, most of what was on offer was fairly good. The only thing that stuck out didn't do so because it was bad, but because (even by the lofty standards of the boxes around it) it was outrageously expensive.
Sushi is delicious. Give it a try, Malcolm.
Jo W @ 11.58am I also thought the black paint was gloomy. Croydon needs some bright cheerful colours.
It provided the inspiration for Watford's New Market. God awful place that is.
I wonder if the locals are willing to pay £6.50 for an artisan jacket potato and filling? You can get way with that with the lunchtime trade in Soho, City of London and Canary Wharf, but Croydon?
Struggling to work out if Berkshire Boy's post is a parody on the emboldenment of xenophobia since brexit.
The central dining area with several outlets round the outside is commonplace in Asia. I for one am pleased to see this concept being unveiled more and more in the uk.
"A few less fortunate operations are outside facing the road"?!

I co-own one of the businesses facing outside. We feel pretty fortunate being where we are. But thanks anyway. Don't rush back.
"...unless that's actually the best place to be to catch all the passing trade."

Why not read to the end of the sentence?
But thanks anyway. Don't worry, I won't be rushing.










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