vegan coffee shop

Edinburgh coffee shop goes vegan

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The great vegan march forward continues as Chapter One Coffee Shop in Edinburgh announces that it is set to turn completely plant-based.

In case you are unable to access the above image, the coffee shop wrote:

Dear friends, from 5th June we will stop serving animal products in an effort to be a better business for the people, the planet, and the animals. We will still be serving all your favourites in a plant-based version! Thank you so much for understanding and hope to see you soon!

If you are in Edinburgh, you had better make this West End business your new local for coffee, sandwiches, and baked delicacies. It is a big deal to make this sort of statement with a business and Chapter One deserves all our support.

In extra fabulous news, Chapter One is fully powered by renewable energy. Could you love them more?!

You can follow Chapter One on Instagram and Facebook, while you can see the exact location thanks to Google Maps.

Now, let’s celebrate some of their food photos!

New vegan café in Brixton

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If you are trying to keep track of all the new vegan places in London, you are probably getting worn out.

Multiple new ventures seem to be popping up each week and my head is spinning with trying to report it all back to you.

Next up?

Blank Brixton is a coffee shop and café on Acre Lane, situated about halfway between Brixton and Clapham Common Underground stations. They have only opened a short while ago, so I wanted to reach out to the team to find out what their deal is and they wrote this gorgeous, little piece of prose for me:

We are the place you come to cry a little
Laugh a lot, eat some more and feel alive.

Our food has no bounds or limits
It is made to be enjoyed by anyone and everyone.

The coffee is always fresh and conversation is too.
We are vegans just like you
We are blank brixton 🙂

Check out some of the photos from Blank Brixton below and get along to show your support for this new vegan business. You can see the exact location thanks to Google Maps. They are open 7 days a week.

You can also follow Blank Brixton on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

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New vegan coffee shop in Dalston

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I simply cannot keep up with vegan news flying out of London.

I adore hearing it all, but there is too much!

I’m thrilled to announce that a brand new 100% vegan coffee shop and deli is opening tomorrow (Tuesday May 8, 2018) on Kingsland Road.

Happy Cat Coffee has been trading for a while as a market stall and pop up concern, but the Dalston spot marks their first ever permanent shop.

The first 20 people to visit on opening day (7am until 7pm) get a free dairy-free coffee to celebrate!

Happy Cat offers oat, coconut, soya, almond and cashew milks, and while you are there you can pick up some bean-to-bar chocolate. Everything is vegan and in the next week or so customers will be able to grab vegan steaks, vegan sausage rolls, and pasties.

Happy Cat is located at 374a Kingsland Road Dalston E8 4AA in a super cute space next to a tailor. You can see the exact location on Google Maps.

You can follow Happy Cat on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Sneak preview of a vegan donut shop

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The countdown is on.

London, your very first 100% vegan donut and coffee shop opens on January 17, 2018.

Lauren of Dough Society asked me to share a few quick glimpses of what the interior of the shop looks like ahead of their grand opening.

Check it out. So gorgeous!

The Dough Society donut and coffee shop is located on Mare Street in Hackney. It’s almost exactly half way between Temple of Hackney and Black Cat Hackney. That part of town really is exceptionally vegan friendly.

Click here to see the exact location thanks to Google Maps.

To celebrate their opening, Dough Society will be giving away one donut to the first 100 customers through the door on Saturday January 20, 2018. (Grand opening is a few days before this giveaway, so get in for one of the early preview days to avoid the rush)

Be sure to follow them on Instagram to stay updated on all their delicious shop news and donut flavours.

Fields Beneath joins Hackney Downs Vegan Market

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Superstar vegan coffee shop and café The Fields Beneath is now a regular trader at Hackney Downs Vegan Market.

This is BIG NEWS.

The Fields Beneath is a truly adored coffee shop that switched to being a 100% vegan business earlier this year and it has gone from strength to strength ever since.

The business is currently fundraising to open its second location (you can donate online here for fab rewards) and now they have also committed to serving their loved coffee every Saturday at Hackney Downs Vegan Market.

You can visit the current permanent location next door to Kentish Town West station and follow The Fields Beneath on Instagram.

Click here to see all the details of Hackney Downs Vegan Market including full trader line up.

Vegan cafe set to expand

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Here is a success story worthy of a bit of hollering.

The Fields Beneath is an absolutely adored café and coffee shop in Kentish Town, London. The outlet got a whole lot of positive press earlier this year when it became fully vegan.

Yes. An already super busy and well-respected coffee emporium ditched dairy and they haven’t looked back. 2017 has been a bumper year for The Fields Beneath and now they are looking for some community help so they can expand in 2018.

You can read all about the fundraising campaign here, but the basic facts are simple.

The Fields Beneath plan on opening location number two and they already have half the funds they need. They need our help to raise the rest of the cash.

You can be part of history by helping to establishment London’s first chain of vegan coffee shops!

Of course you can just give some spare change if you believe in supporting independent vegan business, but you can also pick some from a line up of impressive rewards that includes a year-long supply of coffee, dinner and a movie at the cafe, or a limited edition art print.

The Fields Beneath have less than a month to raise £30,000, so please dig deep if you can and share this campaign far and wide. Click here to donate.

Follow The Fields Beneath on Instagram.

New vegan cafe and art space

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A speciality, sustainably minded vegan coffee shop and arts space on Hackney Road in East London has just opened. It’s called Unripe Banana.

Upstairs they have a coffee shop with a bit of extra seating downstairs and then also downstairs they have an art gallery and events space with artist studios.

On the menu at the moment they have coffee by Origin Coffee Roasters that they pair with nut mylks made by the East London Mylkman. They also have Oatly Barista available as well as cashew and almond.

They told me their plan is to set the bar for vegan speciality coffee and eliminate the idea of dairy free mylks being bad.

They have a selection of different cakes/croissants available and even offer a cheese and tomato filled croissant.

The menu also includes a cheese pesto and rocket toastie, a tofu BLT, smavo marmite and chilli on toast (smavo being smashed avocado) and a spicy chickpea blend with spinach and avocado. There are also different flavours of overnight oats and right now they have carrot cake jars of overnight oats.

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Unripe Banana is minimal waste and against air miles so they do everything with a ‘think locally’ mind set and avoids plastics wherever possible.

They also have a retail section where they sell UK designed dungarees by Lucy and Yak, their handmade banana mugs and a variety of different items by artists and makers.

Click here to see where exactly Unripe Banana is located thanks to Google Maps (just a few steps from Hackney City Farm on at Unit 7, 268 Hackney Road).

Follow Unripe Banana on Instagram. The café is open 7:30am until 4:00pm Monday through Friday and 9:00am until 4:00pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Non-vegan café switching to vegan

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I simply ADORE sharing news about non-vegan food places switching to plant-based offerings.

Slowly but surely, small victories for animals are turning the world just that little bit more vegan… and victories rarely come more uniquely planned out than what is going down at The Fields Beneath.

The Fields Beneath is a much-loved coffee shop and café situated at Kentish Town West station in North London.

Owner Gavin gave me some VERY interesting insights into how he is easing his loyal customers into veganism. I absolutely love his plans for 30 plant-based coffees for £30.

Let me step aside and give Gavin some more space to explain:

At The Fields Beneath, we’ve been open a little over four years and started transitioning to a vegan menu in December, cutting out meat first. The exciting opportunity we’ve got with the shop is that a vast majority of the customers are not vegan. They don’t get it in the way I feel only vegans do; I certainly didn’t myself until about this time last year, and the cafe has the chance to introduce customers to many parts of the vegan journey.

We started the conversation two weeks ago by offering a program where a customer can get 30 coffees for £30, the catch being no dairy! As of yesterday we’ve signed up 100 people. ‘What’s wrong with dairy?’ comes up a lot but the aim is to cut out dairy completely by the end of April.

As for the food, we’ve aimed so far to replace things with their vegan counterparts; our cakes, our croissants and sandwich ingredients. The hot dishes have been vegan for over a year.

From February we’ll be pushing the possibilities with food, choosing not just plant based menus, but leaning on as much seasonality as we can. On top of the team we’ve got, led by Helena Vieira, we’re building one for the future and have welcomed back old friend Avneet Padda after two years away working for the likes of Silo in Brighton and Cafe Oto in Dalston. She’s bringing a wealth of experience with baking, fermenting, pickling, seasonal produce and so on. So we’re very much at a ‘watch this space’ point.

We roast the coffee ourselves at Tate Britain, and have plans to make our own oat milk so that a) our costs don’t go up by moving from dairy to Oatly, and b) to make sure people don’t need to spend more money to be vegan.

What a well-thought out and inventive way to ease people into accepting vegan café choices as an everyday occurrence.

I can’t wait until my London return when The Fields Beneath will be 100% vegan. Who wants to meet me for a croissant?!

Please follow The Fields Beneath on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Extra note: The Fields Beneath is a London Living Wage Employer. Fuck yeah!

Extra extra note: The Fields Beneath are running a hot water bottle drive. If you have a hot water bottle that is spare, drop it off with the café. If you are currently on the streets, you can drop in to collect a hot water bottle that has been recently filled. You are also welcome to return for hot water refills when needed.

South of the river treats

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I have often heard about The Waiting Room in the south London enclave of Deptford, but really wasn’t sure where Deptford was situated. It sounded like one of those places you would never visit due to it being in the middle of nowhere.

I don’t know why I thought that, I just did.

This week led to somewhat of a revelation as I discovered there is a train departing every 10 minutes from London Bridge station that takes an incredibly short time to deliver its passengers to Deptford, just one station away.

The Waiting Room is a vegetarian coffee shop offering vegan alternatives for almost their entire menu. It would be marvellous to see this rad store front make the switch to completely vegan, but until they do vegans still have a lot of food and drink to keep them busy.

Check out what I got my paws on during my visit this week.

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