Independent Bristol brewer Left Handed Giant (LHG) has opened a new café within a business hub in the city centre. Commune is based in BLOK – a recently revamped office building by Castle Park.
Blok underwent a £12m refurbishment earlier this year and is now 70% let. The property includes 70,000 sq ft of workspace and a further 11,000 sq ft of amenity space including a communal lounge, meeting rooms, a courtyard garden, roof terrace and private gym.
LHG has seven other outlets serving food and drink across the city, including the Finzels Reach Brewpub, which overlooks the city’s floating harbour, and its main brewery, Taproom, in St Philips.
It also has other coffee offerings – at New Cut Coffee on the Harbourside and Hotplate Diner in Stokes Croft. There are plans in the pipeline to expand the operation to include an alcohol licence in the future too.
Bruce Gray managing director of LHG said: “This was a wonderful opportunity for us to expand our presence in the city and continue to serve top-quality food and drink to the people of Bristol.
“The BLOK site has been extensively refurbished to an extremely high standard and to be able to open up the Commune Café as part of this project is truly exciting for everyone involved.
“We now operate two main brewing sites in the city, producing around 7,000 hectolitres of beer annually, which is sold through independent pubs, bars and bottle shops with the majority straight to tap through our Brewpub, the St Philips Taproom and from where it all began for us at the Small Bar.”
Having purchased the tired-looking 1980s-built property in 2021, Boultbee Brooks now has a raft of tenants operating from the building including Coreus Group, Basekit, 5 Values Consulting, RWK Goodman and Irwin Mitchell Solicitors.
Boultbee Brooks managing director James Whitcher added: “The opening of Commune café completes the extensive £12m refurbishment of the building and we are absolutely delighted to welcome Left Handed Giant into the BLOK family and we look forward to working closely with them as we continue to deliver quality office solutions – and coffee – for the people of Bristol.”
Commune café is open daily from 8am to 5pm, and includes access to a courtyard garden.