92 Degrees began with five friends who kept their other jobs and shared one obsession with coffee. They spotted an empty Art Deco shop front on a corner in the Georgian Quarter that had stood vacant for ten years, bought a roaster in 2014 and taught themselves to use it in a meeting room nearby. In January 2015 they opened on that corner as Liverpool’s first combined micro-roastery and coffee shop. The name is the founders’ optimum temperature for extracting espresso, and the promise is “Damn Fine Coffee” for everyone.

None of the founders took a salary in the early years. The company moved online when the pandemic hit and its community showed up for it. By 2026 there are over twenty locations across the North West and Scotland, a roastery on Liverpool’s waterfront, a team of more than a hundred people and franchisees opening further afield. Six of the sites are in Liverpool, among them the Georgian Quarter original, a shop in the Baltic Triangle, a site at LIPA and sites at Lime Street and Central stations, with others in Manchester, Salford, Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow’s Queen Street station and Neston.

The coffee is still small-batch and hand-roasted. The core trio is Hope Street Espresso, named after the street of the first shop, California Calling and a sugarcane decaf, joined by seasonal guest roasts, compostable pods and subscriptions. A separate trade site handles wholesale, and a franchising programme invites new operators. The current retail range is listed below with the roaster’s own tasting notes.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: 92 Degrees