Kember & Jones
The bakery bakes its bread on site daily and rotates through sourdough, rye and raisin, wholemeal spelt and pain de champagne, and the espresso is roasted by the same business at its own off-site roastery.
Why go
It opened in 2004 as a self-styled fine food emporium, and the format has barely moved since: a long glass counter, an open kitchen, shelves of continental dry goods to the ceiling, and a mezzanine squeezed in at the back. Time Out counted 34 covers, which is the single most useful number here, because at peak the queue is the experience. The two production lines are what separate it from the rest of the Byres Road cafe row. The bakery turns out the breads, scones, tarts and meringues in-house, and the coffee comes from the company's own roastery rather than a wholesaler.
Order this / avoid
- Order: a sandwich built on the day's bread, or a sharing platter, which Time Out described in the Italian build as pecorino, sun-blushed tomatoes, fresh pesto, passion fruit and cold meats, calling it
an intimidatingly large feast.
Take a meringue with the coffee.1 - Avoid: arriving with four people at lunchtime. Thirty-four seats over two levels does not absorb a group.
What locals & experts say
- Time Out Glasgow (October 2014): Malcolm Jack rated it 4 out of 5 and Recommended, summing it up as
High-end cafe and bakery that specialises in hearty platters of meat and cheese, cakes and home-roasted coffee. It ain't cheap, but the food's great.
1 - Time Out on price:
Prices are steep on pretty much everything here, but you get what you pay for.
That review is from 2014 and remains the most recent critical assessment found.1 - Local rec: Jeff's save, and the note below is his, which makes it the most recent word on the place.
Good to know
- Timing: breakfast onward. Hours are contested between sources, from a 5pm close to a 10pm close Monday to Saturday, so check the Maps pin before an evening visit.
- Booking: walk-in only, and it queues at peak.
- Getting there: 134 Byres Road, a few minutes down from Hillhead subway. The venue's own website was unreachable in July 2026; the separate online shop still trades.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "Old standby, but a bit dated"
Verdict
listed — On the board. Twenty-two years on Byres Road with its own bakery and its own coffee roastery behind the counter, which is real production for a cafe of 34 seats, and Time Out rated it 4 out of 5 and Recommended when it last looked. It sits at listed rather than higher because that look was in 2014, no source has argued for it since, prices were called steep even then, and Jeff says it has aged. The bread is good, the coffee is fair, and nothing here argues for a detour.