Virgin Lounge

Apparently you never get something for nothing, that’s probably true but if you are happy to spend the 15 minutes opening an account with Virgin Money then you get unlimited lounge access, hot and cold drinks, snacks and biscuits and free wi-​fi.
There are two sides to the lounge, on the left where the coffee machine is, there is table and chair seating similar to a company canteen and then on the right is a rather lavish sitting room style seating. In between the two there’s a reception area with a grand piano available if you feel like having a tinkle on the ivories.
There are similar lounges in Glasgow, London, Manchester and Norwich that you also gain access to by becoming a member of the Lounge.
I can’t praise this place enough, if only it weren’t as busy but that’s a great sign of its success.

When you first join the Virgin Money Lounge you think there must be some catch but, aside from the many Richard Branson-​related images hanging on the wall, there is no hard sell.
Any Virgin Money customer can use the three lounges located in the UK (the other two are in Norwich and Manchester), and can take guests too. Free coffee, tea, soft drinks, biscuits and fruit are available to consume in either the comfortable lounge to the right of the staircase as you enter, or the meeting room on the left (both have lovely views over St Andrew Square, which will look even better when the tram hub has been completed). The latter is available to book for one-​off use by community groups.
I don’t use it as often as I would like because I work from home and don’t often pass the Lounge. But if you were in the centre of Edinburgh regularly this would be somewhere you’d want to pop in to all the time, to sit back in the cosy armchairs and catch up on the news on the large screen TV, browse the net on the Lounge’s iPads, or curl up with a book while drinking the excellent coffee.

This place is amazing. If you’re a Virgin Money customer (I am) then you get free membership, which includes unlimited visits to the lounge, free wifi, tea, coffee, soft drinks, snacks, magazines, newspapers etc.
The lounge itself is properly lush and posh, with loads of comfy seats to sink into an relax. It’s an ideal place to pop into if you have an hour to kill, a great book to finish or need a meeting place for colleagues or friends.
There’s a breakfast room on the opposite side of the lounge if you prefer to be seated in a more upright position as you sip your coffee and discuss the day’s events.
The loos are pretty lovely too. Real Molton Brown to wash your mitts with. Need I say more? Loos are always a good indicator of a place’s potential. I think we’re onto a winner if they are anything to go by!

Interior designers will tell you that red can be a claustrophic colour.
Not so in the Virgin Lounge. The stairs lead up to an open space, full of light and with carefully chosen branding.
A large bookcase holds a small library behind a grand piano. A smiling… well, brand ambassador? customer service person? — a smiling member of staff, in understated black and red takes details and chats about how the system is slow and she’s hoping that feedback about this will result in changes to the process, as she’s very sorry it’s taking a while to find the correct details. She offers that she will give us a tour and explain how the Lounge works but that, if we’d like to have a look around first, she’ll have the card ready if we’d like to come back.
Unfortuanely, the large model that echoes Virgin’s current advertising has had an incident… not good timing for the front carriage of the tiny train to be in the fake water when that day’s headlines were that Network Rail were to be sued over the Virgin Rail crash!
Looking past this, however, the model is in the middle of a large room with café tables, and self-​service counter, where members of the Lounge can help themselves to coffee, teas, soft drinks, pastries, biscuits etc. This room is similarly light and airy, perfect for reading the paper, having a business meeting, or finding a space out of the madding crowd for lunch.
The main room, with its grand piano, selection of reading material and iMac terminals, also introduces large-​backed, oversized armchairs where you can sit and read either one of the books, or one of the free newspapers, or any of the other reading material… I chose to browse through a Hip Hotel/​Holiday book and, after I’d exhausted a flip-​through, moved on to a Richard Branson business book.
The next room is a social room — more of the over-​sized armchairs, a large TV, free iPads… the cosiest room but still filled with light and still carrying through the sublte branding and feeling of space and a hint of egalitarian, inclusive gentleman’s club.
The customer service was excellent, friendly and observant without being intrusive; as I was leaving, the customer service person mentioned that not only could I take my copy of the Richard Branson book with me, but there would also be an updated version of the Holiday guide coming out, if I’d like to check for it next time I was in.
Overall, it was a very solid first impression, suggestive of understated wealth, space and a certain level of comfort. It is a great space — one that opens your ideas, rather than being at all claustrophic.