Fade To Black - St Albans

My favourite local coffee spot. Great coffee, friendly faces, good selection of lunch bite and pastries. Fresh juice selection if you need a bit of healthy option. Perfect for meetings and remote work if you need to get out of the house and change a scen. Parking around the corner and they have loyalty programme.

Coffee is great! Staff are hit miss! Some of the staff are lovely helpful and never fail to say hello to my dog and give him a biscuit (bonus points) however there are also some staff who let the side down by being miserable and unfriendly. Great ambiance in the evenings with good selection of drinks, but same goes for staff, really depends who you get serving you.

I use this place a lot and overall it’s always pretty good, I just have one personal niggle that always seems to be present (I will explain later) Pros: Staff always friendly and engaging both during the day and in the evening when it turns into a bar. Big up Sophie who runs the bar in the evening. Quality of coffee is great. Quality of food is good, I have had multiple lunches and always very tasty. I have not sampled the evening platters but looking at other guests food they do look good and plentiful. I would definitely recommend this place. Cons So my one niggle and what stops me from giving this a 5 star review. Like many London Hipster spots there seems to be an all day presence of people using the place as an office. One woman can be seen working all day every day. I never think restaurants get good value from this and it just makes the place look scruffy and as it’s not that big a place I’m sure they lose custom. I have swerved it on a number of occasions due to this. I have seen a few London places posting a polite notice that seating is limited to 90mins during busy times, maybe this could be a good suggestion.

Superb coffee. Food is top drawer too. Toasted ham, cheese and chilli jam is highlight. Have also been several times in the evening for booze. Such a great vibe and staff are very accommodating and cheery.

I visited the new Fade to Black at Trestle Arts Base. Lovely coffee, friendly people and a really cool overall aesthetic and chill vibe. The variety of choice for food and snacks is very good, especially the pastries. I look forward to seeing what events will be held here in the future.