Cafes / Reviews
Wiff Waff – cafe review
Scaffolding poles. Tick. Reclaimed wood. Tick. Hanging filament bulbs. Tick.
Wiff Waff on Baldwin Street certainly fulfills the checklist of cafes following the latest design trends.
What most of these don’t have, however, are a table tennis table – which itself is held up by scaffolding poles and reclaimed wood.
It’s not the first table to appear in Bristol in recent years – see also Kongs of King Street and Club Haus on Welsh Back – but the name of this new cafe (the original name of the sport that began life as an English parlour game) is a sign that they are banking much of their reputation on ping pong.
I managed to get two quick knocks in during a visit on opening week. My first game was rather brief, playing as I was against my fiancée Joanna who was transporting our eight-month-old daughter on her front.
The second was a few rallies with Chris, who happened to be visiting in his job with Clifton Coffee. Challenge him to a match next time you see him working behind the bar at Small Street Espresso. The boy got game.
Wiff Waff is bound to be popular with usually sedentary office workers, and a quick game of table tennis is guaranteed to beat checking personal emails on your lunch break.
The long and narrow room used to be a hairdressers, and has a door to the rest of Newminster House – once upon a time the grand offices of the Western Daily Press and now home to various businesses who no doubt will give this new cafe some much-needed regular custom.
They will find baguettes, baps, doorstep sandwiches, ciabattas and salads, with sweet treats made by Cakesmiths of St Philip’s alongside the coffee from Clifton and tea from Canton.
A quick first to 11 on the Wiff Waff table tennis table could soon become a new lunchtime checklist.
Wiff Waff, 27-29 Baldwin Street, Bristol, BS1 1LT