Rumdoodles was recommended by the staff at Caffi Caban, which Amanda and I visited two weekends ago. Located on Llanberis High Street in the heart of Snowdonia, Rumdoodles is a 10-minute drive from Caffi Caban, so we thought we’d check it out.

Rumdoodles, which opened in 2018, is an outdoor shop with an espresso bar inside. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it had two cosy (and tiny) seating areas in the front and back, but these are currently off-limits. Until they’re back in action, Rumdoodles is serving in takeaway cups only, so don’t forget to bring your own.

Rumdoodles uses the ubiquitous Landmark seasonal blend from Heartland Coffee Roasters, serving a standard espresso-based menu, backed up by a range of cakes. You can sit outside on the solitary bench to drink your coffee or, as Amanda and I did, take the short stroll down to the shores of Llyn Padarn.

You can read more of my thoughts after the gallery.

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Rumdoodles, a self-styled Outdoor Store & Espresso Bar, is on the eastern side of the High Street, the main street through the heart of Llanberis, although if you are taking the A4086, you’ll bypass the town centre altogether. If you are driving, there’s plenty of parking, including right outside on the street.

Occupying a standard, old-fashioned store front, with the door recessed between two picture windows, Rumdoodles is quite hard to miss, with its blue colour scheme and bright yellow “RUMDOODLES” written across the full width of the shop. The window on the left contains some coffee and outdoor gear, with a solitary wooden bench outside on the pavement. Meanwhile, the display in the (slightly narrower) right-hand window is, if I’m honest, almost completely pants.

Inside, Rumdoodles exudes an atmosphere of charming, well-organised clutter. The espresso bar, where you order and pay (for everything, including shop purchases), is on the left, set back from the window, and running maybe half the depth of the store. The space between counter and window housed one of the two cosy seating areas, but it’s now off-limits until COVID-19 numbers are down. Practically all of the remaining space is used for retail, an eclectic mix which includes coffee kit, plenty of reusable cups and bags of Heartland coffee. For the rest, Rumdoodles sells “good outdoor gear, and stuff that makes us laugh” (according to the website, and I agree).

A third, smaller window in the middle of the back wall makes the whole place very bright. The second (tiny) seating area used to be here, but it too is off-limits, so for now you’ll just have to order at the small shelf on the front, right-hand corner of the counter, the espresso machine to the right, facing into the store, while the cakes line up on the left, facing the window at the front. The menu is on the back wall of the counter, with the list of cakes pinned up to the left of the shelf.

Amanda had a long black in her Speckled Ax cup, while I would have ordered an espresso if I’d remembered my Kaffeeform cup (I’d left it at home that morning). Instead I had a flat white in my Global WAKECup, saving the joy of the Landmark blend as an espresso until the following week at The Jester’s Tower Coffee House.

Amanda got what she described as “darker tones and oak” in her long black (which she enjoyed) while I found that the Landmark went really well in milk, producing a classic flat white. We also had the last slice of the Klad Kakka (Swedish chocolate cake), which was rich and chocolately, the perfect companion to our coffee.

December 2021: Rumdoodles was a runner-up for the 2021 Smallest Coffee Spot Award.

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