Control

Home from Staines by 7pm and, fifteen minutes later, we left again heading for Battersea Power Station.  When the Power Station re-opened as a shopping and leisure complex last month, one of the main attractions was a cocktail bar known as The Control Room. When we took a look around the queues were long but PY had thought ahead and booked a table for one of the first dates that was available. And tonight was the night. 

We arrived and it was quite busy.  They seemed a bit unprepared for our arrival and didn’t have a table available nor looking like it was gong to be ready.  At first, we were a bit disappointed at being seated at the bar but, after some time, came to realise we had quite a decent view of what was going on.  There’s a lot of old power station control equipment (pictured) around but,I suspect, it’s all been placed for the bar and this isn’t the original home ... but I may be wrong.  

Service was quite slow but we put a lot of that down to the team finding their way - even though they have been open for some weeks.  The only downside of being seated at the bat was that the waiting staff seemed overlook you and the bar staff couldn’t actually service you.  We had a couple of drinks but might have had a third had service arrived in time.  The atmosphere, however, was great with a lot of people going up to the glass partition to take pictures of the control equipment. If we’d been seated there we might have got annoyed the disturbances - I took this shot as one group left before the next were seated.  Obviously, it’s pricey but as a one-off experience I liked it. My hunch is that in a few months it will be easier to get seats and service will have settled down.

Extra: cocktails.