Pablo’s Edinburgh, Morningside. The Yellow Ceiling Nightmare We Love

By May 2024 we thought we had this whole “opening shops” thing figured out. Then came Morningside.

The first thing you notice when you walk up to the hatch? The ceiling. It’s yellow. Not just yellow. Nuclear, cartoon-sunshine, Donald Trump spray-tan yellow. Nobody asked for it, but it’s there. Forever.

One customer once said it looked like we were squatting in the shop. Fair. Between the vibe, the dodgy fittings, and the random stuff falling apart on a daily basis, you’d think we broke in and just started cooking bao. But nah, we pay rent here. Lots of it.

Before Pablo’s, this place was the old Comiston Fry. A proper chippy. You can still feel it in the walls. Sometimes the fryer haunts us. Sometimes the plumbing haunts us. Sometimes everything haunts us. Honestly this shop has more maintenance issues than most horror films. Drains, leaks, ceilings, electrics — if you can dream it, it has gone wrong here.

But we’re still standing. Still serving breakfast baos. Still keeping the lights on. (Most of the time.)

Because it’s Morningside. And Morningside is weird and wonderful. It’s full of independents doing their own thing. Quirky shops. Odd corners. Dogs that probably have better health insurance than you. People who will happily tell you their opinion of your shops paint job without being asked. It’s batty. It’s brilliant. It feels alive.

So yeah, the ceiling’s radioactive, the building falls apart every other Tuesday, and sometimes the vibe is “squat chic.” But the breakfast bao? The bao is banging. The coffee hits. And the community makes it all worth it.

We love Morningside. We love this cracked-out, broken-pipe, yellow-ceilinged box of joy. And we’ll keep serving breakfast with a grin even when the roof caves in.

36 Comiston Road
Edinburgh
EH10 5QQ