Top Mcr Coffee Shop Gets Two New Sites

 

In the next few months, owners, Claire and Phil Howells, will open outlets in Spinningfields and also Longford Park in Stretford on the border with Chorlton.

The Spinningfields outlet will be in Quay House. In otherwords in the Confidential building. Underneath our office. Two floors down. Oh dear we already drink too much coffee. The new place will also do fuller food ranges and evening meals with booze.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

The first new Caffeine & Co outlet to open will be the cafe in the park. This will be run in conjunction with Hulme's Uprising Bakehouse and start brewing and baking in mid-June. It will be in the existing building close to the Pets Corner.

The site will open seven days a week offering Uprising’s loaves, warm scones from the oven at 3pm, a full brunch menu at weekends, slow cooks and stews for lunch, homemade kid’s lunches and occasional summer barbecues.

 

Claire Howells says, “Longford will be a working kitchen and bakery as well as a café. We think this will be a great spectacle – you can watch a cake being made while you have a coffee, go for a walk and then come back and eat a slice."

Uprising Bread Coop is a small artisan wholesale collective started by a group of food loving producers. If this is important to you you'll be glad to know the bakers use entirely seasonal, locally sourced ingredients and authentic organic produce. 

The bakery produces wheat and spelt slow fermented breads and sweet buns along with foraged preserves, local relishes and oils and lots of other bread accompaniments made in their wholesale kitchen garden. 

Oddly the project will be managed in association with Trafford Council.

Janey Riley from Uprising says; “Uprising will be hoping to open a community kitchen programme of workshops in the near future at Longford from bread and cake making, to preserving and barrista coffee making in partnership with Caffeine & Co.

"We have assured Trafford Council of our mutual commitment to the local community and to developing the facilities available in the park. Current plans include turning unused land adjacent to the cafe into a communal allotment, with a philosophy of 'grow your own' we hope the produce will be used by locals and the cooperative in their supply chain to producing great food.” 

Meanwhile back in the city centre The Spinningfields site will open two weeks later bringing a cafe and pop up bar/eatery to Quay House.

The cafe will offer a fuller range of coffee and food products than in St James’s Square.

Phil says “The current shop is so small that we decided to stick to espresso and espresso and milk drinks and just offer one espresso blend. Now we have more space we’ll have four grinders with guest espresso. Our suppliers, Square Mile do a fantastic decaf, plus a full range of soft brew options and we’ll have more beans and brewing paraphernalia for sale.

"The daytime food offering will also grow because we’ll have a real café where people can sit and eat. We will make daily slow cooks and a wider range of breakfasts for starters and we will search out products from local suppliers including pork pies plus we’ll have a pizza oven on site so that offers plenty of options.

The evening offering, set to start serving a few weeks after opening, will see a change in personality with smalls plates such charcuterie, cheese plates and pizzettas plus a choice of interesting wines and craft beer.

Claire adds, “We want to create a civilized space where incredible ingredients are prepared simply and paired with great booze. We want to create a menu that supports sharing in an atmosphere that promotes conversation. Now the kitchen in Longford is online there are endless opportunities for culinary creativity.”

Phil Howells adds; “We have a tagline that will run at the bottom of our menus. It reads “Real Bread, Slow Food, Great Coffee” and that kind of sums it up. It’s vital that we make everything ourselves, basically bringing the ethos of a high-end restaurant in to the world of cafes. What we can’t make ourselves we source the best and tastiest that we can from local suppliers that we know and trust.”

Aside from sounding a little too smug Confidential thinks this pair might be ones to keep an eye on. Their ambition is clear for all to see.