Brown & Green and Four Boroughs set up shop in SE25

You know what they say about London buses, and now it seems the same can be said for cafes in South Norwood. Not content with a plethora of decent options within a stone’s throw of Norwood Junction station, not one but two new trendy coffee shops have now opened in the same week – and directly opposite one another.

Brown & Green is already well known in South East London, thanks to its spots in Crystal Palace Park, the Crystal Palace Triangle, and a few other popular parks – they now have a total of seven sites in London. They tend to have a family-friendly vibe and the Norwood Junction cafe has already attracted plenty of ‘SoNo’ mums and dads. It’s not the cheapest but the grub is pretty good from our experience and they’ve already created a nice feel thanks to plenty of plants.

Four Boroughs, which also has a shop up on the Triangle, is all about the coffee. Tucked up against the station, while they also offer pastries, bags of coffee beans, and Kombucha, it’s really all about the takeaway caffeine fix (though they do have a few benches outside for perching with your pain au chocolat).

While B&G has taken the place of Cafe Mimosa, which sadly vanished towards the end of the pandemic, Four Boroughs seems to have repurposed – in an impressively minimalist and stylish fashion – an unused part of the station outbuildings. Tardis might be stretching it but it certainly feels bigger and smarter on the inside than you might expect.

Two new additions to South Norwood’s cafe ‘scene’, complete with a sun trap seating area between the two. Happy days.

And they follow on the heels of… 241 Norwood, which increasingly seems to cater to the working-from-cafe crew, Cafe Terra and Deli for affordable Portuguese pastries and coffee, the legendary Walnuts and Honey (cupcakes and coffee), Yeha Noha cafe and bar, Communitea (with added veggie goodness), Costa, and Greggs (!), all within touching distance of the High Street.

Back in 2013, the South Norwood Tourist Board rightly made claim to South Norwood as the real Lake District. After all, we’ve got two lakes, while the Lake District up north only has one (officially, at least). Now it might be time to say move over Crystal Palace, in your face East Dulwich – South Norwood is the future when it comes to coffee and cafes in South London.