Ten Reasons Gloucester Road Shops Rock

31/07/2015
Lily Baron

Gloucester Road resident Lily thinks it’s the best place in the world, and the bee’s knees for shoppings sprees. Here’s ten of the best places to spend your hard-earned cash.

The Gloucester Road is amazing. ‘It’s the longest road of mainly independent shops or something like that,’ my friend, who studied Gloucester Road for GCSE geography, said when I asked her over text for generic Gloucester Road facts.

However the sad thing is a lot of people would prefer to go to Cabot Circus or Park Street (which, don’t get me wrong, are both amazing places) so I am here to explain to you why Gloucester Road is just as good if not better than both of them. Gloucester Road has it all, from cafes to restaurants, from charity shops to independent shops, so without further ado here are ten of my personal fave places to be:

10. Pink Lemons

41 Gloucester Rd, Bristol BS7 8AD

Pink Lemons sells clothes and knick-knacks and it is ideal for gifts. When we had a French exchange girl staying with us we spent a lot of time in this shop picking out gifts for her parents.

9. Totally Toys

109 Gloucester Rd, Bristol, Avon BS7 8AT

This one is totally self-explanatory, I hope you don’t need me to tell you what this shop sells. Unfortunately, I no longer frequent this shop but I did spend a lot of my childhood in this shop buying GoGos (anyone remember those?). I have been in there a couple times though as it is an excellent place for buying birthday presents for children (or joke presents for friends).

8. Tart

16 The Promenade, Gloucester Rd, Bishopston, Bristol BS7 8AE

Tart is a café, which is, unfortunately, right next to a Costa Coffee, meaning a lot of their potential customers go there instead. I recommend this place as they always have an excellent selection of cakes and their hot chocolates are amazing.

7. Scoopaway

113 Gloucester Rd, Bristol BS7 8AT

This shop is ideal if you want a healthy snack. It sells health products and some chocolates and treats. They do products for dietary requirements such as vegetarian, vegan and coeliac. I have first-hand experience of this as I have gone dairy free in the past for health reasons and I can tell you that they are incredibly helpful and friendly.

6. Romantica

309 Gloucester Rd, Bristol, Avon BS7 8PE

Romantica is a card and gift shop. Pretty much any time a friend is having a birthday I am there. It has such a wide range of cards, so it’s ideal if you want to tell your friend ‘congrats on making it to 100’ even if they’re not remotely close, and so many trinkets that make excellent gifts.

5. Bubalu

79/81 Gloucester Rd, Bristol BS7 8AS

I have been into Bubalu only a few times but they have made it onto this list because their juice is incredible. Everything is made fresh and not only that but in the rooms behind their café bit you can do fitness classes. Now I’ve never attended one of these classes myself but I have heard only good things about them.

4. La Ruca

89 Gloucester Rd, Bristol BS7 8AS

A very good friend introduced me to La Ruca, I knew about the shop downstairs but she showed me that upstairs they have a café. Downstairs the shop sells health products, special dietary foods and more and upstairs in the café you can get a taste of Chilean/Hispanic foods. It is a family-run business and they are very friendly in there. When I go in I like to get a churros and hot chocolate combo which is delicious. Their churros are not the traditional kind but they do come with chocolate sauce drizzled on top.

3. The Breadstore

45 Gloucester Rd, Bristol, Avon BS7 8AD

Maybe I am biased when it comes to the Breadstore because I had a Saturday job there for a while but I’m not lying when I say that everything they sell is amazing. Not only do they sell bread (as you would expect from somewhere called the BREADstore) but also savoury snacks and sweet treats. They have a selection of pizzas and pasties that they will heat up for you instore and they also sell sandwiches, my personal favourite is their ploughmans, which I tried accidentally one time when I thought it was a cheese sandwich. As for the sweet treats they sell everything including flapjacks, muffins, doughnuts, croissants and many more.

2. Scrumptiously Sweet

83 Gloucester Rd, Bristol, City of Bristol BS7 8AS

It was very difficult for me to decide whether or not this shop should take the top spot. I mean it is a sweet shop for crying out loud. Not only that but it is an adorable little old-fashioned style sweet shop. It has jars of sweets on the walls and a pick-and-mix section, and the staff are always friendly.

1. Fox and Feather

43 Gloucester Rd, Bristol BS7 8AD

I own far too many items of clothing from this shop, it is unreal. It is number one on this list, partly because I didn’t want to seem like I am obsessed with sweets, but mostly because their clothes are extremely good quality (I’m wearing a jumper that I bought from there two or three years ago as I’m writing this) and really just very nice. Not only do they sell clothes though, they also always have a collection of really cute and delicate jewellery and if I could own it all I would.

I feel I must add that this is only a section of Gloucester Road. To be more specific it’s the section from where it starts at the Zetland Road junction to the Somerville Road junction. I have only written about this section as this is where I usually am when I’m on Gloucester Road and I feel I do not have the authority to write about further up apart from to say that Gloucester Road continues for a very long time (it is approx. one and half miles long). Also in the other direction is Stokes Croft so maybe one day I will explore there so I can do a sequel to this. I hope I have sold Gloucester Road to you and if I have, my work here is done.

You a Gloucester Road fan? Got another street to rival its majesty? Let us know: @rifemag