Neighbourhood Café was founded in Belfast in 2021 by friends Oisin McEvoy and Ryan Crown, and opened opposite St Anne’s Cathedral in the Cathedral Quarter. A fire in 2022 forced it out. It reopened that December in a smaller unit nearby in the Cathedral Quarter, restored a classic truck in 2023 to take its coffee and goods on the road, and in 2025 moved into its “forever home”, the former Church of Ireland House next to the cathedral. In August 2024 it also opened a second café in Austin, Texas, next to The Dead Rabbit’s bar.

The coffee is from Calendar Coffee, the Galway roaster, on espresso and on batch and hand-brewed filter, hot or iced, and the staff are trained regularly on the coffee. Neighbourhood is the “Home of the Piccolo Split”. The matcha is from OMMA, and the drinks list also has chai, hot chocolate in several flavours and a housemade strawberry soda.

The brunch menu is built on local ingredients from trusted suppliers. Breakfast runs from sourdough tartine with house-made jam and Turkish eggs in garlic yoghurt to scrambled eggs with peanut rāyu, the Neighbourhood bagel with sausage, scrambled eggs and a hash brown, eggs Benny with pulled ham hock, breakfast tacos and a porridge brûlée. The café is walk-ins only, with no reservations. Its illustrations, uniforms, packaging, menus and interiors are by Crown Creative.

Hospitality is at the core of Neighbourhood. In 2025 the Sunday Times included it among the ten best up-and-coming restaurants in Ireland, with the line “The winner of the longest queue has to be Belfast’s Neighbourhood”.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Neighbourhood