Gordon St Coffee opened its first roastery and coffee shop in 2014 on Gordon Street, beside Glasgow Central Station, and set out to take on the caffeine heavyweights with the freshest shop-roasted coffee in the city. It has since added a second roastery and shop in Edinburgh, by Waverley Station, and a pop-up inside the Well & Boot pub at London Waterloo station. The tagline is that good coffee is unmissable, but Gordon St Coffee is unmistakable.

The roasting is done on a Diedrich IR5, a 5kg machine the team calls Deirdre, and the roasters work without computers, watching the colour of the beans in the drum and listening for the crack. The range is sorted into lighter roasts, dropped just at first crack and recommended black for pour-over, medium roasts, which it specialises in, and darker roasts taken up to second crack for espresso and milk. In 2026 three of its blends, the Glasgow Roast, the Edinburgh Roast and the House Blend, received Great Taste awards. There are subscriptions, a loyalty scheme, Nespresso-compatible pods of the Glasgow Roast, a wholesale arm trading as Gordon St Trade, and a detailed access guide on AccessAble.

The Glasgow shop has been temporarily closed since the fire next to Central Station in March 2026, and by late June the team still had no access to the building. Online orders are roasted and sent from Edinburgh, and since the summer Gordon St has run a pop-up at The Barras Market every Saturday and Sunday, serving its signature blends among the market traders.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Gordon St Coffee