The pretty little UK market town that's full of independent cafés - ‘it's lovely’

While chains like Gail’s and Pret dominate British high streets, independent cafés are still holding court in some corners of the country.

A leafy town on the suburbs of Nottingham is establishing itself as a hotspot for family-run cafés. While the usual chains like Costa still exist there, it’s the unique cafés that bring the neighbourhood to life.

What breathes life into Beeston is the nearby University of Nottingham. The leafy campus sits in the north-east of the town, meaning the students flock to the centre to study at a table with a cup of coffee.

Sue Kudryk, who has owned and run the Metro Café for more than 10 years, told the Nottingham Post that the town is so unique because of the strong relationships the businesses have with one another.

"For a lot of the businesses nearby, we'll run food across to them and we all know each other by first name," she said.

The area is full of hipster cafés, but Rory Archer, owner of Greenhood Coffee, claims that his café was the very first when he opened it in 2015. His vision was to cultivate a space that feels thousands of miles away from Beeston in a cosmopolitan city in San Francisco or Japan.

"Students do keep us alive and I'd say they make up about 50% of our clientele. We also have a lot of people coming in to work on their laptops,” he added.

Cartwheel Coffee is run by a family that has run various cafés across Beeston since 1998. Ella Bagrowska, the manager, said they can forge a connection with customers you can’t get anywhere else.

She added that everything is homemade and they roast their own coffee – wanting to give something more than a supermarket can.

AM Coffee, Yellow Wood, and The Hideaway are other local favourites. The DoughMother bakery was so popular that they opened a second, called Doughter, just 20 minutes walk away.