Pubs and Bars / News
Cider bar pop-up hopes to become permanent
A pop-up cider bar has opened in an area of Bristol where an apple orchard was located for almost 500 years.
The Cider Cellar on Frogmore Street is from the team behind BumbleBee Cider who are mostly serving their own ciders on tap within two former garages near the Hatchet.
BumbleBee co-owners Jess Higgins and Wesley Bodman hope to one day make their pop-up premises permanent, but for now are open when they are not busy making cider.
Every pint costs £5 in the Cider Cellar, with Jess and Wes donating 2p from every litre of cider they sell to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
A visit to the Cider Cellar – open over the upcoming Bank Holiday weekend on Thursday, Friday and Saturday – will also usually mean getting acquainted with Brew, Jess and Wes’ rescue dog from Romania.
The Cider Cellar on Frogmore Street was previously two garages – photo: Martin Booth
Jess, 28, who was previously a police officer, and Wes, 30, formerly a fire fighter, live together in Bath.
They took over BumbleBee Cider from their friends Tim and James who were planning to close the business before moving to Australia.
“We love the cider, wanted to keep drinking it and we also wanted to work for ourselves,” Wes told Bristol24/7.
Jess added: “We make the cider and we thought we’d now have a go at just setting up a bar as minimally as possible to see how it goes this summer.
“If it works well, it’s definitely something we’d like to make a more permanent thing in the future.”
BumbleBee make four different ciders which are all available at the Cider Cellar – photo: Martin Booth
It is complete serendipity that Jess and Wes chose to open the Cider Cellar on Frogmore Street, with the Hatchet thought to have once been the farmhouse for an orchard that occupied much of the land between College Green and Pipe Lane from 1220 until 1717.
The area’s former apple trees are remembered in a few nearby street names including Orchard Street, Orchard Lane and Orchard Avenue.
Main photo: Martin Booth
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