House Brown is a new café and coffee house in Newcastle’s Old Eldon Square, dedicated to serving quality food and drinks while championing local businesses through its network of regional suppliers.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00House Brown is an independent cafe that serves really good quality coffee, tea, cakes, everything we get is made in Newcastle.
00:11The coffee is roasted in Newcastle, the cakes are all from artisan bakeries within the Newcastle, that's a very big thing for us.
00:18Local independent businesses are increasingly rare in UK city centres and Newcastle is no exception.
00:24A stroll down Northumberland Street or through Eldon Square reveals a landscape dominated by familiar high street chains, offering little in the way of unique locally rooted experiences.
00:36This shift reflects a broader national trend where rising rents, competition from online retailers and shifting consumer habits have squeezed out smaller enterprises.
00:47Is it a family business?
00:49It is family run, so it's myself and my dad who started it.
00:52So every decision that's made typically goes around my family, so we all talk about it.
00:59So it's family run in that sense.
01:01I'm the one working inside, so people will see my face quite a lot, but the Brown family make a lot of the decisions behind the business.
01:08So two things about House Brown that I always rave about.
01:13First of all, our emphasis on service is a very key thing for us.
01:18We want people to feel at home, hence the name House Brown.
01:21I want people to feel like it's not so much a cafe, but our house and everyone who goes in there is welcome as family.
01:29That's how I want to do it.
01:31As well as everything is locally sourced.
01:34So we work with a lot of small businesses, artisan bakeries that may not be as central as us.
01:39So we like to use House Brown as a platform for those smaller businesses to get their products out.
01:45We don't white label anything.
01:46So everything that we do sell, we're not shy about saying where it's from.
01:50And we absolutely want to tell people, not even just the products, but these guys' stories as well.
01:55That's absolutely fantastic.
01:56Some of the how they came about.
01:58And I don't think they get the recognition they deserve.
02:01A lot of places they supply to don't tell people where they're from.
02:05And I want House Brown to be different.
02:07We've had really good feedback.
02:09A lot of things are pointed out to us, which is absolutely fantastic.
02:13I love constructive criticism, especially at the beginning.
02:17You know, it's so important to get things right.
02:19Obviously, like every new business, we've got teething issues.
02:21And we're doing our best to sort of iron those out.
02:24So it's where I've got really lovely feedback.
02:26Everyone loves the building.
02:28I really wanted to complement the architecture, since it's such a historical street as well,
02:34being the last surviving side of Old Alden Square.
02:37So it's really nice to be able to have something that complements that inside.
02:41We've had a lot of compliments with the coffee, the tea, and especially the interior.
02:46Everyone really seems to like what we've done inside,
02:48which is lovely to do since it's been dormant for 10 years.
02:51It's been a construction site.
02:53So it's lovely to put something nice in there, to breathe a new life into it.