Oh to work in Wanstead…

Suki Orange, Wansteadium’s food blogger, writes about something other than food…

I know I’m not alone in sometimes, once in a while, needing somewhere in Wanstead to do a bit of work.  I mean I have a regular place of work (beautiful walnut roll-edged desk, naturally) but sometimes I  need somewhere in or around the High Street to concentrate for an hour or two.

My needs are simple. A table, a chair, solid wifi, and some access to a power socket. It’s not a lot, and I’ve often thought that I might even be prepared to pay a little bit for it. But there’s only one place in Wanstead, apart from dear old Starbucks,  which really fits the bill, and that’s the library, which gets chockablock by mid-morning.

The other day I was unsuccessfully looking for a spot among the audiobooks and old copies of the Sunday Times there, and wandered to the ladies’, when I noticed a rather unhelpful note on the door of the Churchill Room. That’s the hall by the side, where they have arty fairs. This note read: “This room is not for study or work.” It made it sound rather like there were gangs of youths flitting round Wanstead, taking advantage of any spare room to swarm in and stage an impromptu discussion of the parallels of social discontent in Lord of the Flies.

So it was interesting to see, on a recent trip to the delightful Rivington Bar and Grill in Shoreditch (the restaurant’s setting is wonderful, feeling almost like a shady bit of New York or even Paris somehow) that I stumbled on this little place in the picture.  Probably not too much money to be made of an idea like this in Wanstead, but it’s not like the High Street doesn’t have any vacant properties, is it? The Painted House pop-up office space, anyone?