Cambridge’s favourite indie!

Mill Road is well known for its independent shops and businesses, so it’s no surprise that the area has done so well in the Discovering Cambridge competition. Discovering Cambridge was set up by local MP Julian Huppert in January of this year to celebrate the City’s independent traders and encourage people to visit their local shops, businesses, cafes, restaurants and pubs. People have been able to vote for their favourite in a different category each month and the winners from the Mill Road area have included the following:

• Best Independent Coffee Shop (January) – Hot Numbers
• Best Independent Music Shop (February) – Rhythm Online
• Best Independent Specialist Food Retailer (March) – Limoncello
• Best Independent Pub (July) – The Kingston Arms
• Best Independent Home & Garden Shop (August) – Cutlacks

An overall winner will be announced at the Mill Road Winter Fair on Saturday 7th December, and now’s your chance to vote for your favourite – just make sure you fill in a voting form while there’s still time. It great to see the traders and businesses around Mill Road doing so well, the best way to show your support for them is to use them – and of course vote!

Your favourite High Street

The Telegraph newspaper are running a campaign called Reinventing the High Street, aiming to put the heart back into the country’s traditional high streets. People are asked to nominate their favourite simply by emailing highstreet@telegraph.co.uk.

I don’t know about you, but I think there’s something pretty special about Mill Road and I think it deserves a place among the best that the UK has to offer. Not only is the Mill Road area home to Cambridge’s best independent pub, coffee house, home & garden shop, specialist food shop and record shop (all awarded this year in the Discovering Cambridge awards) and home to the Independent Drinks Retailer of The Year (as voted at the UK Drinks Retailing Awards 2013) but it’s also the location of CAMRA‘s Cambridge City Locale Pub Of The Year 2013. There’s a range of events on throughout the year – including the Romsey Art Festival, several street parties, various beer festivals and of course the forthcoming Mill Road Winter Fair – as well as regular music nights at lots of different venues; and next week sees the first ever Romsey Calling music festival on Mill Road.

Mill Road has even been used as a location for music videos (like Mikill Pane’s ‘Good Feeling‘), films (Neil Morrissey was here last month filming a new movie, Caffiend), TV programmes (including Antiques Road Trip) and has had residents such as Douglas Adams, Dave Gilmour, Syd Barrett, Angela Hartnett and Amy Williams over the years. It even has its own blog and its own radio show – ‘Our Mill Road‘! There’s lots more I could say about Mill Road, but too much for one blog post (hence the whole blog!) but suffice to say it’s full of community-spirited individuals and groups and has lots of people living, working and socialising in the area and keeping Mill Road the coolest street in Cambridge.

All you need to do to nominate Mill Road is to email highstreet@telegraph.co.uk and let them know! You know what they say – there’s something about Mill Road… .

Best indie pub

Local MP Julian Huppert launched his Discovering Cambridge competition in January, in order to support the independent shops and businesses we have here in Cambridge. People nominate their favourite in a different category throughout each month, with a winner announced at the end of the month. There will also be an over all winner announced at the Mill Road Winter Fair on 7th December.

The Mill Road area has had winners in three of the six categories so far and now lays claim to Cambridge’s best independent music shop (Rhythm Online), best independent specialist food & drink outlet (Limoncello) and best independent coffee shop (Hot Numbers). The category for July is best independent pub and you can nominate your favourite by email, twitter or post – see Julian Huppert’s website for more information.

Best independent pub is an interesting category – the vast majority of pubs are owned by larger breweries and chains; yet they are, in the main, run by a landlord and/or landlady who probably runs only that pub and who brings their own character to the place. Pubs that are part of larger breweries and chains often have certain restrictions placed on them (such as only being allowed to purchase their beer from a specific provider) but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t plenty of room for making their own unique mark in their local communities (in fact, I reckon most people would be more likely able to name the landlord/landlady of their local than which pub company it belongs to…). I’m not quite sure what definition Julian is going with for his competition (and where part-tied pubs fit in) but if it’s only pubs that are not tied to a larger chain or which are the only pub run by that tenant/owner, then that leaves just a small handful in Cambridge.

I’m going to nominate the Earl of Beaconsfield – Susie and Matt took over the pub last October and have made it into a really lovely place that not only looks after its existing regulars but is welcoming to new visitors too. There’s all sorts of regular music nights (Sunday blues jam, Monday open mic session, Tuesday acoustic jam, Thursday Irish music session and regular jazz Saturdays) and they’re all free, the back room that was previously out of bounds has now been completely transformed into a large games room, the pub now serves food and the beer garden has also had a much needed makeover. They’ve also set up Facebook and Twitter accounts for the pub, as well as recently launching a brand new website. Given all the hard work Susie and Matt have put in to the Beaccy and the great changes that have come as a result in such a short space of time (and bearing in mind the fact that they had never run a pub before!) I think they thoroughly deserve some recognition for their efforts.

Mill Road itself has lost over 60% of its public houses in the last twelve years alone, and now just two pubs remain. So there’s never been a more important time to make sure you use your local, and the sunny weather is the perfect time to try out the ones you haven’t been to for a while or visited before. Just don’t forget to nominate your favourite indie pub by 31st July (tomorrow!).

What’s your favourite coffee shop?

MP Julian Huppert has just launched a competition – Discovering Cambridge – to find the best independent Cambridge businesses. He is asking the public to nominate their favourites and there will be a winner chosen in a different business category each month – with the over all winner being announced in December at the Mill Road Winter Fair. This sounds like a great idea and should hopefully highlight the importance of using our local independent shops and businesses (which shouldn’t be too hard to do around Mill Road!).

The category for January is ‘Best Coffee Shop’ and you can vote for your favourite via Twitter, Facebook, email or post – just remember to do it before the end of the month.

Boards outside some of the cafe’s on Mill Road: (L-R) Cafe De Paris, CB1, Neide’s Deli Cafe, Limoncello & Cafe Otto.

Even though I’m fairly sure I know a coffee shop when I see one, it’s worth noting that as well as being “a shop where different types of coffee are sold, either to drink or as beans or powder” the term ‘coffee shop’ can also refer to “a small informal restaurant where drinks and small meals are served, sometimes in a larger shop or building” – so I assume that café’s and the like can also be included. There are several such places around Mill Road, the vast majority of these are independents and include:   Cafe Otto, Neide’s Deli Cafe, Café De Paris, Hot Numbers Coffee, Limoncello, CB1, Cornerstone, Rotana, BLD’s, Urban Larder, Black Cat, Snakatak; and you can even get a cup of coffee at the RSPCA Bookshop. There are probably others too (apologies to those I’ve missed) but these are just the ones that spring to mind.

Although I have my favourites, I think the competition is a good opportunity to try them all out – well, as many as possible (there’s only so much coffee a girl drink in one month!). It would be great to see one of our Mill Road places win the best coffee shop accolade, but the important thing is that we use our independents – so make sure you go and enjoy some of the local cafes this month.

Also – those of you following me on Twitter or Facebook will know that last week I asked for peoples favourite budget-friendly eateries around Mill Road, as I am writing an article. The article will be a short list of my favourites (which may include cafes, restaurants, pubs etc) but I do want to mention places that other local diners like – so do join in the conversation on Twitter or Facebook and let me know what would be on your list.

Somewhere over Mill Road…

I usually take my camera everywhere I go (much to the dismay of some of my friends – who I’ve managed to take some rather ‘surprised’ pics of over the years) but a few weeks ago I realised moments after leaving the house that I didn’t have it on me. Even though logic told me that nothing too exciting was likely to happen on my three minute round trip to buy a pint of milk at the local shop, for some reason I felt compelled to go back and get it – just in case. I was very thankful I did go back, as just moments later a beautiful rainbow appeared over Mill Road!

Lots of people stopped in the street to take pictures and people came out of the Earl of Beaconsfield, Billy’s and the sushi bar to see exactly what it was that I and others were pointing to in the sky. From where I was stood it looked like the rainbow was emanating from the roof of Limoncello and looked so beautiful.

As I looked behind the Beaconsfield I saw another rainbow appearing over the rooftops and then a few moments later a third one appeared to the south of Mill Road. I had never seen more than one rainbow at a time before, it looked amazing. By this point it was raining heavily, but in my quest to get a decent photo I decided to stick it out for a few more minutes.

So I now make absolutely sure I’ve got my camera with me before leaving the house – just in case. Which reminds me – I’ve managed to capture a few nice sunsets recently, but more on that another time…