Phoenix Cafe, All Saints’ Street: Review

Bristol city centre is full of cafes, but around the Broadmead area there’s nothing quite like the Phoenix Cafe.

Located on All Saints’ Street in the ground floor of the Pithay building, Phoenix has risen from the ashes as an arts hub, retail space and cafe, with the latter serving both other tenants of the building and members of the public who are looking for a more ethical option when it comes to breakfast or lunch. Oh, and there’s free WiFi too, which made my decision to arrange a lunchtime meeting there this week that little bit easier…

The Phoenix Cafe is part of The Real Junk Food Project: a group that is working to reduce food waste in the form of pay-as-you-feel surplus food cafes up and down the country.

What makes this cafe special is that the food used to create its breakfasts and lunches is sourced locally and would otherwise be wasted.

Their bread, for example – which is both served for meals to eat in and sold as whole loaves to take away – comes from Joe’s Bakery, who throw loaves away at the end of the day before baking fresh batches for the next morning. Instead of these perfectly good loaves going to landfill, they are liberated by the Phoenix Cafe, along with donations of surplus food from other Bristol businesses.

Walk into the Phoenix Cafe and you’re face with a range of mismatched table and chairs of different styles, heights and levels of comfort that give the place a quirky and relaxed feel – aided by the gentle, chilled music playing through the cafe’s speakers. The FishPlant system to the left of the counter also adds the sound of trickling water, to make the environment feel still more laid back.

On the day of my visit, the long, curved counter was topped with a basket of loaves of Joe’s Bakery bread of various types, available for customers to take home with them for a donation of their choice. Behind the counter, the small “kitchen” of the cafe consists of two soup urns, a toasted sandwich maker and a fridge, giving diners a relatively limited choice but one that varies from day to day depending on the donations received.

Details of the day’s menu are posted on the front of the counter, which is coated in blackboard paint. Behind the counter, a raised blackboard gives details of the range of hot drinks available, starting at a very reasonable £1.20 for an espresso; rising to £1.80 for a latte, flat white, cappuccino or macchiato. There are various teas and a chai latte option also available, while the Phoenix Cafe also offers protein shakes for £3.50 each or £30 for 10.

I was pleased to see that my decaf latte was charged at the same price as the standard option, and enjoyed a well-made version with the Extract coffee that the Phoenix Cafe uses.

We arrived at the cafe at 1.30, by which point most of the food had gone and the board had been wiped clean. The day’s soup options had been a choice of tomato or Chinese spring onion, and while these had been finished, we were offered in their place a toasted sandwich with a selection of salads from the fridge.

Essentially, it’s the sort of place where you turn up and enjoy a lunch crafted from a random medley of ingredients – it’s probably not the best place for those who are fussy about their food. Our toasted sandwiches contained a variety of different cheeses, plus grated apple, which worked really well. On the side, some mixed leaves, chopped tomato, halved grapes and potato salad. While it was by no means a gourmet meal, it was tasty and filling, and came complete with the knowledge that our meal had saved perfectly good food from being thrown away. At the end of the meal, we decided how much we would pay for our food, and added the money to the jar on the counter before leaving.

Open from 8.30am to 5pm Monday–Friday, and 9am to 6pm on Saturday, the Phoenix Cafe is, without a doubt, a great haven for those who are looking for something a little different – and for those who want to help to tackle the massive issue that is food wastage.