The closure of No.5 Abercromby square is a crime against beans on toast

This year everyone’s favourite café has shut its doors. 

Say goodbye to your free Freddo: the cheap and cheerful place of refuge for the students who mill around Abercromby Square is toast.

What was probably the last proper, normal café on campus is gone. You won’t get tea or coffee for a pound anywhere else owned by the University, or even near it, unless you want to bravely slog the extra five minutes to Greggs.

Mambo no.5

Most importantly, free Freddos are a thing of a past. A crying shame and a travesty. The café provided a last beacon of hope in a world where the price of chocolate frogs has sky-rocketed.

We have been betrayed. Who could argue with beans on toast for £1.50? A hot lunch and a cuppa was less than the price of one of Tesco’s more questionable meal deal offerings.

The staff were always lovely, happy to microwave you a baked potato to get you through a hard day of exercising your brain. Soup was served in a cute tiny saucepan thing, so when feeling particularly delirious from all that revision you could pretend you were a giant.

Students up and down campus are in mourning

They’d fill up your Lemsip cup for free (which is more to be said than the library café, they won’t do it because of health and safety – even though they’ll serve you tea at the same temperature).

Not forgetting the tasteful décor, the blackboard specials always looked cute, and the cardboard cut-out of James Coe really brightened up the place.

Everyone loved it (queues got pretty hefty) so why is it gone?

We don’t need fancy stuff. Crown Place and the refurbished Guild cater to a pampered student population. Having somewhere that resembles McDonald’s post-brand revamp with a burrito bar is nice, and will impress your parents, but it’s good to have a balance. Shit cafés are the best, but sadly a dying breed.

Goodnight, sweet prince

No. 5 we loved you dearly, rest in peace.