Café’s, Bookshops and Clothes Sales, from a Sunday Roast to a Monday Morning Pick-Me-Up
In my first year at the University of Exeter, I very quickly fell in love with the city. The perfect weekend had to include wandering around, stopping in a café, and shopping. To me, often the best part of a city is the smaller, independent spots, the happenings that you wouldn’t know about unless you really looked. Through this weekend ritual, I discovered some of my favourite hidden gems. And still, as a second year, I am discovering new ones constantly. In order to share them with you, I’ve cut them down to my five must-visits that can be found from the city centre to even on campus.
My first favourite is newly opened, and right in the middle of the city centre. Suki Café opened early this February on Waterbeer Street, just opposite Guildhall Shopping Centre. The café is inviting and cozy, with the perfect calming atmosphere, allowing you to waste away your day sipping at a coffee. The space has both tables you can share with friends as well as window seats, so you can people watch on a solo date. As a student, it’s incredibly hard to find a good café to study in. Most cafés are hectic, loud (and more expensive than the student loan would allow!), but Suki is a great place to get your essay written in peace. What’s more, there are charging points dotted around the café, so you don’t have to worry about your laptop dying mid-sentence. However, to me, the menu is what really makes Suki a hidden gem. Suki provides a range of coffees and teas, at reasonable prices; but what I positively love is their matcha, which is almost a pound cheaper than Starbucks, and tastes a lot better too. Likewise, Suki offers delicious affordable, Spanish-inspired pastries. Forget paying over £3 for an ordinary croissant at Café Nero, Suki has adorable manolitos (mini croissants) for £1.25, and palmitas for only 95p. They come in a range of sweet, indulgent flavours, but my personal favourite is the white chocolate and raspberry. Not to worry if sweet isn’t your thing; they also do multiple flavours of bocadillos, from salmon and cream cheese to cheddar and sun-dried tomatoes, there is something for everyone. Suki is a charming café, and a small business that I would love to see become more than a hidden gem, but rather a high street favourite.
My next stop is the charity bookshop, Book-Cycle. You can find the bookshop on West Street, based in one of Exeter’s most gorgeous Tudor buildings. The bookshop works to not only provide educational resources to disadvantaged children but working towards reforestation around the world. Even so, the philanthropy is not the most interesting part about Book-Cycle. What makes this charity bookshop so special, is that the customer decides the price. Each customer is allowed to purchase up to three books a day and pay whatever they wish to donate. Let me tell you, it is difficult to choose only three books to leave Book-Cycle with. The shop has two floors and covers any genre you can think of. One of my favourite finds from Book-Cycle was a gardening book on how to grow your own herbs, and how to use them whilst cooking. Book-Cycle is an affordable, accessible option for students – especially English students, like me, who have lots of books to buy – that even moves you to donate to a great cause.
Selfishly, the next hidden gem I was tempted to keep as my own secret, but it is just too good to not be shared. Located slightly further out of town, is St James Church on Mount Pleasant Road. Every last Saturday of the month, ‘The Jumble Man Devon’ hosts a pop-up clothes sale in the church hall, with piles upon piles of good quality vintage clothes, from fur coats to early 2000s gems. Although very different from browsing the racks of an actual shop, there is something rather satisfying about digging through the clothes and finding the perfect piece. On top of that, the clothes are all well-priced. The jumble sale moves around Devon, guaranteeing good bargains and quality vintage to the community. All vintage shoppers can relate when I say it is a struggle to find reliable and affordable shopping options, however, I can safely say that ‘The Jumble Man’ will never overcharge you. There has not been a single time where I have walked out empty handed or disappointed. The St James Church sale is the best excuse to get up on a Saturday morning, and hunt for vintage gems with your friends, or even solo. So, next time you think you’re bored of your wardrobe, skip the fast fashion, and head to the St James church sale, and I am sure you will find something worth your while.
Now, my next stop I would consider a lot more mainstream, and yet, as a self-proclaimed foodie, I cannot help but include it in my hidden gems tour. The Ship Inn is a pub in Exeter that most of you will probably have been to (even if you don’t actually remember!), nonetheless, I am not including this on the list for the drinks but rather the Sunday Roast. When I was in my first year, the weekend would roll around and I would become incredibly homesick – wanting the home-cooked Sunday roast I knew and loved, over the 90p ramen noodles that was my dinner. These days, I know that I can simply head into town and treat myself to a filling, moreish roast. Before wetting your tastebuds, however, I have to say that this is not recommended as the cheapest roast option. There will always be the Toby Carvery, and the unlimited buffet, but to me, that can never replace the delicious, homely roast that The Ship Inn provides. In terms of what the roast consists of, there is their standard menu: Beef, Chicken or a vegan Nut Roast, all reasonably priced below £15. I’m sure that these are all great options, but the real hidden treasure here is the Sunday Roast special. When I visited The Ship, the special was a pork belly roast, which came with a Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, carrots and cabbage, cauliflower cheese and gravy. All this came to £16.50, which I feel is not too much to part with, as I even made it home with some left-over roast potatoes. The Ship is the perfect, cozy pub to visit with friends or even for a first-date roast.
My final gem is something of a tradition for my friends and I on a Monday morning after a lecture, which we call Free-Cake Monday. Although I’m not sure that is its official name, every Monday, situated on the Queen’s building help desk, there are homemade cupcakes, tiered cakes, and even vegan cakes. Personally, Mondays are one of my longest days on campus, and during my seminar break the absolute best pick-me-up are these homemade cakes. The flavours change every week, but some of my recent favourites was a pistachio cake slice, and a Biscoff cupcake. The cakes are usually set out from around 10:00 AM, and so I would recommend you get there early if you want to grab a sweet treat. In lieu of this stop on the hidden gems tour, I want to thank the people at the Queen’s help desk that bake and bring in these delicious cakes every week, I cannot count the number of times I’ve been stressed and one of these cakes has made my morning.
What I really want to express is that for every popular and mainstream stop, there is also a hidden gem, waiting to be found and appreciated. So, next time you have a free afternoon, head into the city and see what you can find – maybe it’ll be a cozy café, or a delicious meal, or a clothes shop that you had once overlooked. Glance down the smaller streets, look into all the shop windows – try something new.
I’m sure that there are more hidden gems scattered around Exeter, and I hope that my list of favourites has inspired you to wander around and find your own.