Cafes / Reviews
Roll for the Soul
Roll for the Soul, Bristol’s new community bike cafe now open on Quay Street, calls itself a cafe, workshop and hub.
And it’s the latter that’s the most important aspect of somewhere that began as an idea born out of a little cafe at the Parlour Showrooms which was the hub for Bristol Cycle Festival.
“It was a lot of fun to be there,” says Roll for the Soul founder Rob Wall.
“Nice people ate and drank and chatted out front, while other nice people fixed bikes out back. But at the end of the festival, the cafe closed.
“Now we’re bringing it back: bigger, better and for 52 weeks a year rather than one.”
More than 200 backers raised more than £12,000 on Kickstarter to get the cafe off the ground, and many hundreds of man hours were done for free to transform a former greasy spoon into what is now Roll for the Soul, with the cafe area downstairs and events space and workshop upstairs.
The counter is in same place as before, but I can guarantee that what used to be Cafe Central was not serving a mini mezze (£3) with khobez bread, olives and homemade hoummos.
Breakfast options here include pastries, toast, muesli and porridge.
Mains are made up of wraps, tortilla, “no bull burgers”, and other options including tarka dal and veg chilli. It’s all very Cafe Kino.
Cycling paraphernalia, posters, photos and map line the walls, while the bicycles on the sign outside were drawn by Chris Price, the illustrator behind the rather splendid Every Bike In Bristol, where he draws and tells the story of Bristol’s pedal-powered machines.
Throughout the day over the next two weeks, there will be live Tour de France and evening highlights on the television upstairs.
Plenty more events are also being held, including Bristol’s own cycling magazine Boneshaker’s issue 12 launch party.
Cycling and cafes go together like Lance Armstrong and performance enhancing drugs.
Here in Bristol, Mud Dock set a national trend when it opened and Roll For the Soul takes that theme and brilliantly rolls with it.
Roll for the Soul, 2 Quay Street, Bristol, BS1 2JL
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