Three roasters in and around Southampton serve their own coffee. Mettricks roasts behind its café in a former bank in Portswood, SOroast has roasted in Bitterne Park since 2015, and Deveroast roasts at Botley Mills, just east of the city. The other three are independent coffee shops that buy from roasters elsewhere: a vinyl café in the city centre with a new guest roaster every month, a vegetarian coffee bar in Bedford Place pouring Moonroast from Hampshire, and a community café in Shirley serving Monmouth from London.
Mettricks, Portswood and across the city
Mettricks opened as one independent café in 2013 and has grown into a family-run group known as “Southampton’s Living Room”, with coffee houses in Portswood, Woolston Waterside and the WestQuay shopping centre. Since 2022 it has roasted its own coffee under the name Ascapart, in 5 kg batches on a Probat at the back of the Portswood café. The head roaster, Wilson, is a Q grader and a Specialty Coffee Association trainer, and the house espresso across the cafés is Bargate Roast, a Brazilian coffee named after the city’s historic Bargate. The single origins run from a washed Ethiopian from the Doyo Cooperative to a Peruvian geisha from Wilder Garcia and a Kenyan fermented for 96 hours.
The Portswood café fills a historic bank building, with high ceilings, exposed brick, wood panelling and a secret garden at the back, and it is also home to The Portswood Bakery, which bakes the pastries from scratch every morning. Chefs make the brunches, bakes and pizzas, using local produce where possible, and the menu runs all day, with craft beer and cocktails too. Woolston opened in 2017 at Centenary Quay, by the River Itchen, with a large sun terrace facing Ocean Village, and it hosts quizzes, games nights and live music. The WestQuay espresso bar is where the founder, Spencer, made his first cup of coffee at 17, when it was the John Lewis café.
SOroast, Bitterne Park
SOroast started roasting in Southampton in 2015, and its store is on The Triangle in Bitterne Park, north-east of the city centre. The SO:Special blend has been “the heartbeat of our roastery” since that first year, made to cut through milk in a latte and still clean enough for filter. The roastery works in small weekly batches, and the single origins come from Rwanda, Ethiopia and Colombia, each roasted to its own profile: the Rwandan 1000 Hills light to medium-light for paper filter, the Colombian Wuchii medium-light with espresso in mind, and a Colombian sugar cane decaf medium-dark.
OSOTO, inside Vinilo in the city centre
OSOTO grew out of time spent in Sydney’s café culture. Its owner, Anneka, started with pop-ups in the summer of 2024, opened the business that September, and in February 2025 moved into the old stockroom of Vinilo Record Store, the city’s first vinyl café by its own account. The coffee comes from a guest roaster that changes every month, and the drinks follow Australian recipes, from espresso and flat whites to batch brew and pour-over. Past guests include Outpost from Nottingham, Moonroast from Hampshire, Oddy Knocky from Bolton, Seadog from Southampton, NewGround from Oxford, Coborn from London and Craft House from Sussex, then Ozone, and Cloud Picker from Dublin as the first guest from outside the UK. OSOTO also runs hands-on workshops for people who want more from a Sage or De’Longhi espresso machine at home.
Happy Bean, Bedford Place
Happy Bean is an independent coffee bar in Bedford Place that turned five in 2026. The café is fully vegetarian, with a wide range of vegan and gluten-free options, cakes and brownies baked in its own kitchen and pastries baked on site every morning. Packaging is compostable or recyclable, with no single-use plastics, and the furniture has been upcycled. Happy Bean welcomes the LGBTQ+ community and hosts a regular LGBTQIA+ coffee morning, dogs are welcome, and there is a study nook downstairs. The coffee comes from Moonroast, “an award-winning, family-run” roastery in Hampshire that roasts small batches to order.
Make & Brew, Shirley
Make & Brew is a small family business in Shirley, north-west of the city centre, run by Hannah, Grant and family. It opened in October 2015 in its original café space, and in 2019 St James Road Methodist Church, about to start a large building project, asked the café to run its new community space, so Make & Brew moved further up the road into the church. It pays fair wages and offers supported work placements. Cakes come from local bakeries or are baked on site, there is a Teapigs tea of the week, and local artists and crafters run creative workshops. The coffee is Monmouth Coffee Company’s espresso blend and its decaf, roasted in London, with retail packs of beans to take home.
Deveroast, Botley Mills
Deveroast began in the 2020 lockdown, when its founder, one half of the late-1990s production outfit Artful Dodger, bought a Behmor home roaster. His son, then 12, told him to sell the coffee and call it Deveroast, a play on the family surname, Devereux. The roastery is at Botley Mills, east of Southampton, and the signature Old Engine Room Blend of Brazil, Guatemala and Indonesia is named after the building it occupies. Green coffee comes from the importer Mercanta and every bag carries its roast date. The coffee house beside the roastery opened in September 2022, with pastries and sourdough from The Street Bakeshop in Old Basing, milk from Cross Valley and oat milk from Unordinary Oats. It has indoor and outdoor seating, dogs are welcome, and parking is free for the first hour.
What you need to know about Southampton specialty coffee
Which Southampton coffee shops roast their own coffee? Mettricks roasts as Ascapart at its Portswood café, SOroast roasts in Bitterne Park, and Deveroast roasts at Botley Mills, east of the city. OSOTO pours a monthly guest roaster, Happy Bean serves Moonroast from Hampshire and Make & Brew serves Monmouth from London.
Where is the coffee in the city centre? OSOTO is inside Vinilo Record Store, Mettricks has an espresso bar in the WestQuay shopping centre, and Happy Bean is in Bedford Place.
Which cafés have vegan or gluten-free food? Happy Bean is fully vegetarian, with a wide range of vegan and gluten-free options. Mettricks also has vegan and gluten-free dishes on its menu.
Can you bring a dog? Mettricks, Happy Bean and Deveroast all welcome dogs.
Is there somewhere to work or study? Mettricks has free WiFi, and Happy Bean has a study nook downstairs.
Where can you learn to make better coffee at home? OSOTO runs home barista workshops for Sage and De’Longhi espresso machines.
Photo credits
Photographs belong to the businesses and are reproduced from their official websites with attribution.
