Liverpool’s specialty coffee story starts with one café. Bold Street Coffee opened in 2010, five friends bought a roaster around the corner in 2014, and the city has been working outward from there ever since: a roastery in the Ten Streets, a café in Aigburth that began as a three-wheeled van, a 2024 roaster in the Georgian Quarter started by three people who met working in the city’s cafés. The list is not ranked.
Crosby Coffee, the Ten Streets, Waterloo and Aigburth
Jack Foster founded Crosby Coffee in 2014, roasting at home and selling at local markets under the name of his hometown; Mark Slinger joined as co-owner in 2016. The founding belief is that specialty coffee should be accessible to everyone, and the business has grown into a roastery with a public counter and three coffee houses. Every bean is roasted in-house at the Ten Streets roastery, where the Roastery Coffee House opens on weekday mornings and courses run from a £45 roastery tour to latte art, cupping and home barista classes. The coffee houses in Waterloo, Aigburth and Hightown each have a rotating seasonal food menu.
92 Degrees, the Georgian Quarter and across the city
Five friends learned to roast in a meeting room in the Georgian Quarter, bought a roaster in 2014 and opened on a corner there in January 2015 as what the company calls Liverpool’s first combined micro-roastery and coffee shop. The name is the ideal espresso extraction temperature, and the promise is Damn Fine Coffee for everyone. The roastery is now on the waterfront, the shops number eighteen across the North West and Scotland with more than a hundred staff, and the Liverpool shops include the Georgian Quarter original, one in the Baltic Triangle and counters at Central and Lime Street stations.
Bold Street Coffee
The original café has been part of Liverpool’s hospitality scene since 2010 and serves specialty coffee, bakes and brunch all day, every day, under the line Specialty Coffee, Northern Hospitality. There are now eight sites, including The Plaza, Duke Street Market and the Climbing Hangar at the Matchworks, plus three in Manchester, and the business sells ten single-origin coffees online. Its website does not say where they are roasted.
Press Bros Coffee, Aigburth and the Baltic Market
Brothers Oli and Tito started Press Bros in 2017 with a converted Piaggio Ape van collected from Bristol, trading at the Baltic Market in Cains Brewery, and opened their first shop in Aigburth during lockdown. The pitch is brunch merchants serving good times, with specialty coffee and cinnamon buns baked daily. The Baltic Market stall stays late with cocktails and coffee, and the brothers have begun roasting, with a washed Colombian from Huila as their first release.
Two Words Coffee, the Georgian Quarter
Two Words is the roaster Liverpool’s café community produced. Tian Tso, Allison Whorton and Tom Sumner met working in the city’s cafés and founded the company in 2024, roasting small batches in the Georgian Quarter: single origins only, no dark roasts masking poor quality and no blends hiding origins, in their words. They visited Finca Puerto Alegre in Quindío, Colombia, in September 2024, buy through fair cooperatives when a single estate is not possible, and supply cafés, restaurants and subscribers across the UK. There is no café, but the beans turn up around the city.
Bean There, South Liverpool
Bean There has served South Liverpool since 2017 as an independent specialty coffee shop, kitchen and, more recently, bakery. The bakery is a separate site a short way from the coffee shop. The website names no roaster.
Mother Espresso, the Ropewalks
Mother Espresso occupies the Tea Factory in the Ropewalks and keeps its website to the essentials: bagels boiled and baked fresh daily, sausage rolls hand-filled and baked daily. The roaster is not named.
What you need to know about Liverpool specialty coffee
Which Liverpool coffee shops are locally owned? All of the above. Crosby, 92 Degrees, Press Bros, Two Words and Bean There are Liverpool-founded independents; Bold Street Coffee is now part of the GSG Hospitality group but began as a single café.
Where are the roasters? Crosby in the Ten Streets, 92 Degrees on the waterfront and Two Words in the Georgian Quarter. Crosby’s Roastery Coffee House is the only one with a public counter.
Where is the brunch? Bold Street Coffee, Press Bros and Bean There all run kitchens; Crosby’s coffee houses serve a seasonal food menu.
Photo credits
Photographs belong to the businesses and are reproduced from their official websites with attribution.
