Food & Drink

Blake's Coffee House

Long-established independent on Grey Street with the earliest weekday opening of any city-centre cafe, and a full breakfast menu to go with it.

Ground Floor, Grey's Buildings, 53 Grey Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 6EE Visit website

Mon-Fri from 7.30am; open Saturday and Sunday mornings

@blakescafencl

About Blake's Coffee House

Blake's has traded from the ground floor of Grey's Buildings on Grey Street for years, which puts it on the curve of what is regularly voted one of the finest streets in England, a couple of minutes below Grey's Monument. It blends coffee to its own recipe, and the room is a proper old-fashioned coffee house rather than a minimal third-wave space, spread over more than one level.

It is the most useful address in the centre for an early start: doors open at 7.30am on weekdays, ahead of almost every other independent in town, and it is one of the few places open on a Sunday morning as well. The breakfast menu is unusually broad for a coffee house, covering a full English, a vegetarian version, eggs several ways, eggs Benedict, a big breakfast stottie and American pancakes, with sandwiches, soups and jacket potatoes from midday. No bookings are advertised, so it works on a walk-in basis.

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