The new space, under the Caravan Coffee Roasters brand, will be housed in a Victorian warehouse across 8,500 sq ft. It will offer a much bigger area than the current roastery to the rear of the group's existing King’s Cross restaurant, which itself opened in 2012.
The site will feature a brew bar and café open from 9am-5pm, and serve daily baked goods – including the restaurants’ familiar tamarind date buns, jalapeno cornbread muffins, and chocolate espresso brownies.
There will also be house-made cold-press juices, tonics, sodas, kombucha, and cold brew coffee available at all Caravan restaurants, in the café, and the on-site retail shop.
The team will offer a public timetable of workshops and talks set to be held in the site’s new coffee education studio, which will also serve as a training space for staff.
The space will also include a 70kg roaster from specialist US-based manufacturers Loring, a separate grading and quality control room, staff club room, and climate-controlled green bean storage.
A rooftop garden will also feature, alongside a wormery and vertical planting, plus solar panels, as part of the group’s aim to create the first SKA-rated (the certificate for environmentally sustainable projects) industrial sustainable scheme in the country.
Founded by New Zealanders Miles Kirby, Laura Harper-Hinton and Chris Ammermann, the Caravan Coffee Roasters group was set up in 2010, in the basement of the trio’s original Caravan restaurant in London’s Exmouth Market, and aims to provide coffee from single farms and producers.
The wider team also includes Mike Logue as head of operations and Sam Langdon as head of coffee, plus a group of coffee experts, all of whom will move across to the new roastery once it opens.
Co-founder Laura Harper-Hinton said: “Having outgrown our current roasting operations, we have been on the hunt for a dedicated stand-alone roastery space in the capital for some time now…We feel that with London’s growing thirst for quality, carefully produced coffee from independent suppliers showing no signs of waning, it is an exciting time for us.”
Best known for its brunch and coffee, Caravan operates three sites across London, comprising King’s Cross, Exmouth Market, and Bankside.
Alongside brunch and breakfast, its all-day menu focuses on sharing platters, from bread and cheese, to vegetable-focused small plates such as heritage carrots with smoked paprika yoghurt, or spiced cauliflower with harissa, and larger plates such as confit duck with cavolo nero and pomegranate-mint pesto.