PIN What the Butler Wore (Saw)

Vintage Shop (and Cafe)

A great vintage shop in Waterloo selling dresses, coats, bags, shoes.... If you like vintage, you will have a great time going through all the stuff in this shop. It`s also a great place to pick up flyers and events info.

It’s quite a bizarre, uniquely quirky clothes shop and café double-act, well worth visiting. Located on Lower Marsh (recently moved), a slightly odd market strip near Waterloo Station with strange second-hand book/record/theatre shops close to the South Bank, What The Butler Wore / What The Butler Saw are a fascinating 60s-style boutique vintage clothes shop twinned an extraordinary looking coffee shop.

If you want to see the clothes in their native habitat, why not check out the wartime fashion exhibit at The Imperial War Museum

Serving some nice looking patisserie alongside their delicious coffee, the café is a visual treat with lots of character. There`s no menu so be bold and simply ask. There`s no other food, but there is an extremely impressive range of liquors and shots. The place does not shut until 11pm so is effectively a bar in the evenings.

The place is a treasure trove of vast amounts of memorabilia. Everything on the walls looks like an advert from the 1950s from cigar ads to adverts for live performances by Bing Crosby to old machinery components. The windows, meanwhile are graced by motorcycles, one Italian and the other seemingly from the former USSR. Every retro accoutrement, in fact is here somewhere, and the whole place gives ‘the finger’ (or two in London) to the plethora of anodyne coffee shops chains. There`s a small patio at the back and a basement floor where a red curtain separates you from the toilet. They`ve even got their own in-house cat who purrs at you – but please don’t feed.

Owner

Lucy TripTide

Lucy is a TripTide stalwart and has been with the company since inception. She is a font of knowledge of all things in our metropolis but she has a special penchant for London's historical past. She says:"London is a multi-layered confection of hi...