Review of the Marshmallow Lady, Bonnington

The Marshmallow Lady is a brand new café on Rodney Street. It, as you might expect, is a place to go for marshmallows.

This is the first store for Burgh Bakes, home-made gourmet marshmallows, native to Edinburgh and available at places like Earthy Foods (Ratcliffe Terrace), Lickety Splits (Jeffrey Street), Hula Juice Bar (West Bow) and a few other locations.

It’s an attractive business model for customers. Sit down, pay for a cup of tea and enjoy some tasty marshmallows. If you’re a fan – and many people are – you can then order a bag or two of the specialist marshmallows to take home with you.

The Marshmallow Lady is brand new and I went during the “just opening” phase but it was still delightful. The décor is an odd mix but seems to work. By “odd mix” I might refer to the 60s style lights combined with the functional cuckoo clock on the wall. I rather liked the newspaper mock-up that acts as something of a table-cover – it’s that sort of thing that’ll give the Marshmallow Lady a touch of character. I found myself wishing the decorative feature actually had news on it – and perhaps, as the store matures, it will.

The menu will certainly improve. It may be tea and marshmallow for the opening phase but we can expect a much larger selection – cakes and milkshakes, for example.

The layout of the Marshmallow Lady is interesting. It used to be a hairdressers and the internal structure is much improved. What’s left is a shop of two clear halves; the kitchen and the café. The kitchen is just as large as the café, open and easy to see in to. I’ve always enjoyed being able to see into the kitchen in any place I visit – but this is a step up from that.

There are not that many tables in the main area. This might be due to the size of the kitchen. This may be because, ideally, shoppers would visit to take bags of marshmallows home (perhaps along with a decadent milkshake). I suspect the little shop could get quite busy during peak hours.

There wasn’t any wifi when I visited – but wifi is on the plan. I can think of nothing better than sitting at a comfortable table, with tea and a handy supply of marshmallows to enjoy while I surf the internet. The challenge for the Marshmallow Lady in that scenario is whether or not I’m a profitable customer. If three people do that for half an hour, each with a table to themselves, does that pay the rent?

I think the Marshmallow Lady is a café to watch. You want to be able to say you were one of the first regular customers. You want to recommend it to friends before it begins to pick up extra press attention. My gut feeling is that this will be a popular café/store to talk about and recommend. It has character – and there’s no getting away from the fact that the marshmallows responsible for all of this are very, very good.