Cartwheel Cafe and Roastery is part of Nottingham’s speciality coffee explosion, which saw a cluster of openings over the summer of 2016. It joined the likes of The Speciality Coffee Shop and Outpost Coffee, along with more established players, such as 200 Degrees and Wired Café Bar. As the name suggests, Cartwheel is both café and roastery, the roasting taking place at the back of the store using an innovative 2.5 kg electric roaster. There’s an impressive food offering, with full breakfast and lunch menus, plus pre-prepared sandwiches and salads for those in a hurry. Of course, there’s plenty of cake, plus a choice of six Postcard Teas and multiple soft drinks.
However, the main draw is the coffee. When I visited in the summer, just six weeks after Cartwheel had opened, there was a Brazilian single-origin espresso, with a choice of three single-origins on pour-over (for one) or Syphon (for two). There are plans to change this slightly, keeping the Brazilian for milk-based espresso drinks, but offering espresso (including long blacks and Americanos) as a brew method alongside the pour-over filter and syphon, the idea being to have three or four single-origins available through any of the brew methods.