The man behind Mary-Jane’s Coffee Company, Jon Antoniou, has opened the South West’s first CBD café in Bristol’s Whiteladies Road in a bid to provide ‘a quality, affordable and great-tasting way to take CBD daily’.
Designed to help bring CBD into the mainstream, as well as promote healthy food and drink, the café’s signature coffee blend, Mary-Jane’s Java, is specifically developed to infuse with CBD. Mary-Jane’s Coffee also offers a wide range of lattes, smoothies and shakes, and a food menu which caters for those with specific dietary requirements and includes organic soups, salads, sandwiches, and locally made plant-based cakes and bliss balls. With the exception of some of the cakes which have CBD baked into them, all products are available with or without CBD.
“We wanted to create a space where people could come and meet others who are benefiting from supplementing with CBD and share their experiences,” explains Antoniou. “As a relatively new industry, the primary way for people to purchase CBD is online. There are so many new companies selling it this way that it can be very hard for people to know exactly what they are buying/whether it’s coming from a trusted source and whether it actually contains what it says it does. Our coffee shop provides a physical presence where people can actually come and see the product, meet the people selling it, inspect the laboratory certificate and try it out at an affordable price and in a pleasurable way. We also sell amazing coffee and great tasting wholesome vegetarian and vegan snacks and treats!”
Our coffee shop provides a physical presence where people can actually come and see the product, meet the people selling it, inspect the laboratory certificate and try it out at an affordable price and in a pleasurable way
So how has the café been received by locals? “The reception has been just amazing; better than we could have expected. We’ve had really great feedback, not only about the CBD but also about the whole offering and concept. We see Bristol as a very diverse and forward-thinking city and community (and also a health conscious one), and that’s been demonstrated by the warm welcome and positive reaction we have received. We are immensely proud of what we have achieved and can’t wait to roll it out to other towns and cities.”
When asked whether he believed future legislation could be a potential stumbling block, Antoniou told NPN: “There is always that risk, but it’s one we are willing to take. As more and more people wake up to the overwhelming benefits offered by the hemp plant and its derivatives, we hope that the tide of opinion will be strong enough to ensure that any legislative changes are only in a positive direction.”
Mary-Jane’s Coffee shop is powered by 100% renewable electricity and green gas and its plant-based takeaway cups and pots are compostable. All the shop’s coffee beans are ethically sourced from a farm that has been named the most sustainable in Brazil.
