Would you like to buy the community a coffee?

The Hay Bale Café at Hartcliffe City Farm is more than coffee and cake: it’s a community hub built on affordability, generosity and local connection. With Pay It Forward tokens and supporter prices, every visit helps keep this vital space thriving.

The Hay Bale Cafe is a community café tucked away inside the Playful Barn at Hartcliffe City Farm (HCF), on the outskirts of South Bristol. We’re open Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, serving Radical Roasters coffee, house-made cakes, family-friendly snacks, plus farm-grown flowers and vegetables. The café is owned and operated by me, Soph (they/them), working in partnership with HCF.

I launched the cafe just under a year ago, aiming to grow a community hub for the Hartcliffe area. Hartcliffe is ranked among the top 10% most deprived areas in the UK and is recognised as a ‘food desert’, with very limited access to high-quality fresh food. Working closely with the team at HCF, it felt imperative to pay close attention to the needs of this community when setting up, and not just roll out a cookie-cutter speciality coffee offering (with its usual special price tag!). Instead, the Hay Bale Cafe was built with affordability, community, and longevity in mind.

Local regulars can pick up a Locals Card: these work like any other loyalty card (get a free drink with a full stamp card), but are reserved for those living close to the farm, encouraging a local customer base to develop. To maintain and supplement the generally low menu prices, those who wish to contribute something extra can opt to pay the Supporter Price for their coffee.

Furthering this community-centric ethos is our newly launched Pay It Forward scheme. Supporters can also purchase ‘tokens’ online via www.ko-fi.com/thehaybalecafe or in person, which are then available to claim at the café by anyone who needs.

I opted for online token sales to reach a wide and varied audience: this was borne out of an outpouring of support from far and wide after a power cut at the farm led to significant stock losses. Unlike a one-off crowd funder, the Pay It Forward scheme via Ko-fi allows those who wish to support the café to do so whilst ensuring our community directly benefits from any contributions in an enduring way.

Thanks to this generosity, these tokens are available to claim now at the Hay Bale Cafe and can be used by anybody who needs them – maybe payday is too far away, or the holidays have stretched your bank balance too far; whatever the reason, anybody can need a helping hand sometimes. If you’d like to use a token, just let me know when ordering at the till. You can use a token to cover part or all of your order, and can order anything from the menu.

If you’re in a position to contribute wherever you are, please consider buying this community a coffee online here: www.ko-fi.com/thehaybalecafe.

The Hay Bale Cafe will be open all weekend 9am-4pm during the upcoming Get Growing Trail (Saturday 20 September to Sunday 21 September) at Hartcliffe City Farm – pop in for a delicious brew and support this lovely community while you’re at it!

Follow us at @thehaybalecafe on Instagram.   

Find out more about Bristol’s free Get Growing Trail, a harvest-themed celebration of the city’s vibrant network of gardens, orchards and urban farms. Step inside 30+ of Bristol’s hidden fruit and veg gardens – from city farms to mini orchards. Free entry. Volunteer opportunities. All welcome!

To stay updated on future events, job opportunities and news, don’t forget to sign up for the Bristol Good Food Update at bristolgoodfood.org/newsletter.