Rabbit Hole was founded in 2016 to make delicious coffee without fuss. It started as an events trailer that the founder’s friend Tom Mayger built from old doors and door frames from the original Tetley Brewery head office, and it served food festivals, school fairs and weddings as far afield as London and Newcastle while the founder, Ste, worked bar shifts across Leeds to pay the bills.
A lockdown pop-up with Pizza Loco in Oakwood in 2020 turned it into a full-time business. A pop-up at Harvey Nichols in the Victoria Quarter, opened in January 2022 for three months, lasted three years, with a food menu built on produce from Kirkgate Market and Yorkshire independents. The first shop opened in Moortown in July 2022, and a second followed in Otley in September 2025. Rabbit Hole still trades at events around the country under its own gazebo.
The house coffee, Emma 3.0, is a Red Bourbon from Emmanuel Rusatira and the smallholders around the Fugi washing station in Rwanda, roasted by Cuppers Choice in Sheffield and chosen in blind tastings that keep landing on Emmanuel’s coffees. It suits both filter and espresso.
Coffee on the shelf
- Cuppers Choice roasts the Emma 3.0 house coffee
Photograph: Rabbit Hole Coffee