Vintage is big business in Bristol, and at the forefront of its current popularity is Cox & Baloney, a pair of friends who first set up their shop in the sadly departed Clifton Bazaar (formally Woolies), and are now firmly established in their shop on Cheltenham Road next to Colston’s Girls School.
Earlier this year, the friends, Amy Cox and Joney Lyons, opened a vintage cafe in one half of the double-fronted shop, serving quintessentially English tea, cakes and sandwiches on china you recognise from your grandmother’s house.
While working out the most comfortable way to sit in a windowsill, I enjoyed a traditional cream tea (£3.95 for one, £6.50 for two), a pot of tea served with a scone, clotted cream and strawberry jam, with a few extra strawberries for good measure.
Cakes here are made in the homes of friends of the shop, while sandwiches are of the traditional variety. Vintage-loving Sarah from the Bristol Ferry Boat Company cannot speak highly enough of the brie and cranberry, £3.50 or £4.50 with a cup of tea.
Cox & Baloney’s eccentric English interior includes an original cinema poster for Casablanca and an advert for wine and spirits merchant AC Happerfield of 147 Gloucester Road, which I found on further investigation after leaving is now Peacocks.
Vintage may be the theme here, but there is also free wi-fi, although when I visited there were no laptops on show, only an excitable dog in one corner, quiet chatter elsewhere, and a couple on the table next to me playing chess.
Cox & Baloney Vintage Tea Room, 184 Cheltenham Road, Bristol. 0117 944 3100.
Oh i am honored!
[...] Earlier this year, a friends, Amy Cox and Joney Lyons, non-stop a selected cafeteria in one half of a double-fronted shop, portion quintessentially English tea, cakes and sandwiches on china we recognize from your grandmother’s house… Cakes here are done in a homes of friends of a shop, while sandwiches are of a normal variety. – Bristol Culture, Dec 2011 [...]