Wimbledon Village exists as a pleasant South London neighbourhood for fifty weeks of the year. For the other two, in late June and early July, it becomes something different.
During The Championships fortnight, the High Street and Church Road fill with a particular mix: people in light summer clothes carrying rolled-up programmes, fans who have just left the grounds and fans who are going in tomorrow, tennis followers from several dozen countries who are all somehow in the same square mile at the same time. The pubs set up marquees and extend into their car parks. The florist near the station puts white flowers in the window. It's not exactly festive, in the manufactured sense of the word. It's more specific than that — the particular energy of a neighbourhood that knows something is happening and has organised itself around it.
The anchor point for most people is the Dog and Fox, a Victorian pub on the High Street that sits directly on the walking route between Wimbledon station and the AELTC. During the fortnight it opens its windows and sets up a bar serving directly to the pavement. The outdoor terrace runs standing-room by mid-afternoon on first-week days. It's not a quiet drink, but that's not what you came here for. See live rating and reviews on Google Maps.
The Rose and Crown, a 17th-century coaching inn further along the High Street, is a different proposition. It gets physically decorated for the fortnight — a marquee extends the courtyard garden, large screens show Centre Court matches live, and by late afternoon the crowd that fills it is the one that has been in the grounds all day and needs somewhere to land. If you're trying to decide where to end a day that started at Gate 3 at 9am, this is where you end it. Book a table in advance for the middle Saturday or finals weekend; it fills weeks ahead. See live rating and reviews on Google Maps.
Fire Stables, on Church Road roughly ten minutes' walk from the AELTC entrance, opens early during the Championships to serve breakfast to fans walking past toward the grounds. Floor-to-ceiling doors keep it from feeling cramped even when it's full, which by 8:30am on a match day, it reliably is. See live rating and reviews on Google Maps.
