Like most people, on our rare work from home days we love nothing more than getting the grey matter by having a tuna melt while watching ‘Loose Women’. However, we recently decided to revisit a delightful and little known vegetarian café next to Kennington Park. 

Park College is an establishment that helps young people with additional needs (primarily autism) enter the world of work. On our previous visit we saw young people gardening, repairing bikes, and working in a design space. The Coffee Shop is for folks interested in the hospitality/catering trade, and the students cook and serve all the food with the assistance of dedicated staff. This includes sandwiches, muffins, cakes, paninis and quiches. And they’re mightily proud of their hot beverages and happy to help with your selection. 

My dining partner was once again Karen from Finance, who always enjoys a comp’ed meal. She had the falafel, roast veg and spinach wrap with houmous. This little vegan delight was presented as a wrap, and the abundant Mediterranean peppers were rounded off by chunks of falafel and mounds of creamy houmous. Your scribe had a mozzarella, tomato and spinach panini. The mozzarella was balled, rich and fresh with zingy tomato and mayo. 

While it might not reach the thrilling heights of having edible tableware (see previous post), The Coffee Shop at Park College is a relaxed and chilled environment, where you leave knowing that you have helped build a career for vulnerable young people.  It’s  open Monday to Thursday 9:30am to 3:00pm and Friday 9:30am to 1:45pm, term time only. They also have a very large Instagram presence which showcases their catering business. They also sell a sell a range of merch, from greetings cards to key chains to, um, bird huts. And we all love merch, don’t we?