Bakery and café operator Bristol Loaf is expanding once more with the opening of a third venue in the city, within Bristol’s leading music hub Bristol Beacon. The new indoor and outdoor ground-floor offer, with over 100 covers in total, will serve day-to-night fare and will also boast a new, specialist wine bar by sister brand Native Vine. The space has been designed by award-winning Bristol-based designers Phoenix Wharf, who also worked on the summer 2020 opening of Bristol Loaf on Bedminster Parade, a scheme which won Gold for Interior Design - Hospitality at the London Design Awards 2020.

This time, the look and feel were elevated slightly to fit the cultural surrounds and address a slightly different customer demographic. Where the first two venues appealed mainly to local residential and family customers, the new commercial area location meant the new site would be catering to office workers looking for a grab’n’go breakfast or lunch, as well as to the area’s student community, more likely to want relaxed weekend brunches, whilst the evening audience would centre on the bar and pre-event dining.

‘When it came to the building fabric’ Phoenix Wharf Associate Creative Director Emma Carter commented, ‘both the existing floor and ceiling are in concrete, which was a gift for us because it allies perfectly with Bristol Loaf’s established design language. The brand’s tactile, rustic, ‘anti-slick’ design treatment continues with white tiling, plus the use of solid ash timber. Extensive planting also features once again, both from the overhead timber troughs that house hanging plants, as well as in smaller planters that punctuate key areas internally and border the external terrace.’

The space encompasses a 125 sq m external terrace seating area, with over 50 covers, which is linked to the 144 sq m indoor space (269 sq m including the kitchen space) via two fully-opening doors set within the glazed frontage.

Directly to the left of the main entrance is the indoor seating area, where loose and inset furniture arrangements offer 42 covers. Furniture includes locally-manufactured, bespoke timber tables, the Cult Living Hipster Chair for the indoor space and Sklum Ivor Garden Chairs in Celdon Green for the exterior space. A 6m-long banquette seat, upholstered in green faux-leather to match the indoor planting, runs along the left side of the indoor space. The main servery takes the form of a monolithic, 9m-long counter with a pale concrete top.

Bristol Loaf Founder Gary Derham commented on the new venue and on working with Phoenix Wharf ‘It was great to work with Phoenix Wharf again on this project and to continue to develop our working relationship. As a business that likes to work locally and sustainably with the best companies in the region, it’s fantastic to have an outstanding Bristol-based design resource like Phoenix Wharf to partner with.’