Top Bristol brunch venue The Crafty Egg to open huge new cafe and bar

One of Bristol’s most popular brunch venues plans to open a larger cafe/bar across the road from its original site.

The Crafty Egg on Stokes Croft opened in 2016 and is well known for its huge queues of people waiting for tables at weekends.

And it’s because of this popularity that owner Ben Bennett now plans to move the cafe/bar across the road to the redeveloped Carriageworks on Stokes Croft.

Ben, who also opened a branch of The Crafty Egg in Fishponds in 2022, has applied for a licence for the new site, which will open seven days a week from 8am through to 11pm.

He told Bristol World: “We’re fortunate that we often see queues form outside our venue. For this reason we’ve been on the look out for a larger unit in Stokes Croft for a number of years.

“We’ve missed out on a couple of excellent locations but we’re hoping this one will come to fruition.

“The Carriageworks has been sold to us as an oasis of calm and colour just off the main thoroughfare. The square that we’ll open onto will host regular local markets and will be adorned with art created by some famous local Graffiti Artists. We hope it quickly becomes a vibrant and chilled corner of Stokes Croft.”

Ben says if the plans go through, he will keep the current Stokes Croft cafe open until the new venue is ready and although he hopes this will be this year, the timings are out of his control.

“We will have plenty of outside seating to make more of the sunny days and a shed load more space inside.

“We plan to open later than the current Stokes Croft venue to help cover our increased costs. We will open as an early evening venue, similar to The Crafty Egg in Fishponds and will host host talks, quizzes, comedy events and acoustic music.

“We just hope we can successfully transport the charm from our original venue over the road to The Carriageworks.”