What is it?
A popular café tucked away from the city’s main drag which is roomy enough, should you so desire and we know you wouldn’t, to swing that proverbial cat. Lovingly prepared breakfast and lunch dishes can be ordered until late afternoon and the menu offers a generous range of hot and cold drinks and a tempting choice of sweet and savoury snacks. Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free requirements are catered for.
Flat Caps Coffee in Newcastle
Why is it smashing?
Flat Caps Coffee was judged 2019 Tyne & Wear Coffee Shop of the Year in the inaugural English Independent Retail Awards and you might justifiably think that’s recommendation enough. But the accolade was well deserved. Joe Meagher set up the business in Ridley Place 10 years ago and such was its success that he moved to this much larger space a few years later.
Step down off the street into Flat Caps and you will see the café equivalent of broad acres. Here you are unlikely to feel you’re eavesdropping on your neighbours or hogging a valuable table, which is perhaps why laptops are a familiar sight.
Flat Caps Coffee in an independent coffee shop in Newcastle
Though not a comfy, cosy kind of place – the floor has a factory look and the furniture is schoolroom basic – it is relaxing. Middle-of-the-road music soothes (Fleetwood Mac is on the play list), pot plants swing gently overhead and the quality of the food and coffee – they really know and care about coffee here – will help to drive cares away.
As for that cat (proverbial or otherwise), you’re more likely to see a dog stroll in. Our four-legged friends are welcome and seem much less incongruous in Carliol Square than they might do on Northumberland Street or Grey Street.
Website: www.flatcapscoffee.com
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Address: 9-11 Carliol Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 6UF
Tel. 0191 261 5748
Words/Images: David Whetstone