Bristol coffee shops

After a recent trip to Bristol, in keeping with previous articles on coffee shops in Dublin, New York, Zagreb and  New Zealand and Australia, I thought I’d do a write-up for some cafés we went to.

Playground Coffee House

45 St. Nicholas Street

The first place we called at was the Playground Coffee House.  It hadn’t opened for the morning, we were slightly too early, but we were still able to get some very nice coffees.  It looked like a fun place to go; from the usual like board games, to the unusual like, er, swings for seats.  Which come with their own warning, they maybe don’t mix too well with hot drinks!

The barista was very friendly, and recommended to us a few of the other best coffee shops in town.

Facebook / Twitter

Reviews:

• Playground Rules
• Embrace your inner child at Bristol’s new Playground Coffee House

Bear Pit Social

St. James Barton Underpass

This place is housed in a converted shipping container, in the, er, interesting location of the Bearpit, aka the St. James Barton Roundabout underpass… not as bad as it sounds.  In fact they had quite a nice little seating area in one corner, and they were doing food in addition to the coffees.

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Reviews:

• Bristol Post
• The Breakfast Serials

Spicer and Cole

1 Queen Square Avenue

Spicer and Cole was listed on our map, out in Clifton.  We didn’t go there, but they also had a branch in the centre, on Welsh Back, very close to Queen Square.  I overheard someone in the street raving about it to a couple who were looking for somewhere to eat.  I went there a couple of times; the coffee was ok; we had some nice Sunday breakfast.

Website / Facebook / Twitter

Review:

• Bristol Bites

Full Court Press – Speciality Coffee

59 Broad Street

Full Court Press I visited a couple of times.  The name’s apparently a basketball reference.  They seemed to take their coffee pretty seriously (as their sub-title would imply), and both times the baristas gave me good descriptions of the choice of beans available.

Website /  Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest

Reviews:

• Brian’s Coffee Spot
• Cosy Coffee Shops
• We Hunt and Gather
• Beanhunter

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I intended to visit some of these too, but unfortunately they were all closed on the Sunday:

• Didn’t You Do Well
• Workhouse Cafe
• Small Street Espresso

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The coffee map I bought in Playground was very useful; I’d recommend it if you were on a trip to Bristol and wanted to visit a few different cafés.  It listed 24 different places to go, with lots of information and an attractively-designed map.

Website / Twitter

(when I first checked the website was fine; but it seems be offline right now).