Bean

A very nice place selling some very delicious milkshakes and sweets, a nice seating area with relaxing seats and pictures. defiantly a place to go and relax with a nice yummy milkshake and have a nice chat with some friends

In my school days I was a big fan of the original Bean on Camden Road, a quaint family run sweet shop come café, selling all the chocolate bar combinations of ice cream milkshakes my pre dairy-​free sweet tooth desired. So in theory a newer, bigger Bean should have been a winner.
The ingredients are the same, a plethora of milkshake and smoothie options for the kids, coffees and hot chocolates for the adults, fudge pieces and retro sweets for all. However the new Bean is set out more like a coffee shop, much larger than the original with plenty more seats in the form of café bistro tables. It’s pushchair friendly and more suitable for larger groups but I think it lacks the charm of the original. The smaller first Bean was a cute little sweet shop, with an upstairs lounge that seemed more homely and welcoming.
Don’t get me wrong, I am very pro small independent businesses growing bigger and better but with expansion should come the better service and options that one would expect from a successful business. Which brings me to my main reason for the poor rating; a complete lack of any dairy free options. Now before you say, what do you expect from a café that sells predominantly milkshakes? I do understand that not everywhere, especially outside of the big cities, has joined the soya revolution. However my main issue was that when I innocently asked about ANYTHING they could make me without milk I was told simply and rather unhelpfully that there was none, to which I was left with no other choice than to leave, taking mine and my friends custom to the nearest Starbucks.