Stir

The story

Judith and Matt Harrison founded Stir in 2015 with a simple premise: that Cambridge deserved a café that took both its coffee and its food seriously, and that those two things could coexist without either compromising the other. A decade on, with five locations across the city, the premise has been vindicated.

The expansion from one to five sites is the kind of growth that usually erodes quality — standardisation takes over, the founders become remote from the daily work, things slip. Stir has managed this better than most, which is itself an achievement worth noting.

The coffee and food

Assembly Coffee is the espresso programme, and it's a well-chosen partner. Assembly are a London-based roaster with a strong sourcing ethos and a consistent approach to espresso — their coffees tend to be approachable without being bland, which suits a café that also serves a full brunch menu to a mixed audience.

The bakery operation is as serious as the coffee. Stir produces their own sourdough, pastries, and brunch dishes in-house, and the quality shows — the bakes in particular are consistently good enough to be a reason to visit in their own right rather than simply accompanying the coffee.

The combination of good coffee and genuinely good food in a relaxed setting is rarer than it should be. Stir has made it their model and executed it reliably across multiple sites.

The locations

With five sites across Cambridge, Stir has become woven into the city's daily life in a way that single-site independents can't replicate. Each location has a slightly different character, shaped by its neighbourhood, but the quality and approach are consistent.