Monday 28 November 2011

Pulp Fiction [cafe under new management]

Edinburgh is known for its excellent supply of secondhand and specialist bookshops; many of these cluster around either end of the Grassmarket - on the West Port and now on Candlemaker Row - which led to the creation of the West Port Book Festival.

Into this literary melee comes Pulp Fiction. Located on Bread Street, and adding to the eccentricity of the area, it started out as a secondhand bookshop specialising in Sci-Fi and genre fiction. Steve, the owner, has great plans for the place however, and has already reorganised the space to allow for more seating, installed a remarkably good free WiFi connection and started selling tea and cakes. It's being used quite regularly as an event space, is often open later than anything equivalent, and there may be dramatic changes to come (perhaps involving the excellent view of the castle it would have if someone hadn't previously bricked up the windows).

It's worth bearing in mind that the place is primarily a bookshop and not a cafe. So while they do provide hot drinks at low prices, you shouldn't expect an exciting range of fine teas and single-source coffees. If you can't make it out of a kettle it's probably not going to happen but then, a lot of people care more about the space than the drinks and quite a few of them have nested here already.



So, in summary: it's fairly comfy; the drinks, while not terribly exciting, are cheap; there's good WiFi and a reasonable number of sockets; there is cake; you're surrounded by books. I think that's some sort of #win.