Café W

As predicted I’m upgrading to 4 stars after a few more visits. This is just a lovely laid back café in wonderful bookish surroundings. I like that they stock Scottish products too like Eteaket, Martha’s and Tunnocks. The staff are a bit slow with serving and clearing but if you’re not in a hurry this won’t be a problem. This café will be on my Places To Chill Out list!

This is a nice little café and not usually as overcrowded as many in the city centre can be. They were quite happy to commit to have space for ten of us on a Tuesday evening, although they warned us that while we were welcome to stay until 7pm, the coffee machine gets switched off at 6pm.
The prices are about average and the coffee is nice but nothing out of the ordinary. They have a good range of cakes and bakes and some of the salads and sandwiches look really delicious (I fully plan on returning over lunch at some point). If you have a Waterstones card you can earn or spend points when you buy things in the café as well.
Now that might be my favourite bit. It’s in a Waterstones. Waterstones may not be the perfect bookshop but it does pretty well. There’s not much more comforting than sitting down in an armchair and sipping a hot drink whilst surrounded by books. Cunningly, the cookery book section is just past the café’s seating area — so if you do find yourself thinking that you might be able to make your own chocolate cake at home, they are quite prepared to sell you the very resource you most need.
I only wish they were open a little bit later. The Waterstones on Sauchiehall Street has a Costa Coffee instead. While it’s in the basement so it doesn’t have the benefit of the natural light that Café W has, it does manage to stay open a bit later.

Café W is located on the first floor of the Waterstones on Argyle Street, in a corner of the actual bookstore. The furniture is somewhat old school and combined with all the books, this café creates a nice library-​like atmosphere. There’s free WiFi, and students get free top ups on all coffees (with a Waterstone’s student card — it takes 2 sec. to create and costs nothing). However, they do not make skinny coffees, which is something I find quite essential. It’s a nice place, but it doesn’t really stand out in my opinion.