Coffee Bean

Contrary to what you might assume, Coffee Bean is not a new, Starbucks coffee shop wannabe but is instead a lovely cosy café that has been around for several years.
The café itself isn’t particularly large but is certainly big enough to do the job and what it lacks in size it definitely makes up for with its quality food. Coffee Bean’s menu has a range of hot and cold snacks as well as a small selection of main meals too.
Their snacks include sandwiches and soups which are fairly tasty and reasonably priced. The main meals there are especially good though, with an excellent mixed grill available there for less than seven pounds; a great price for a meal that leaves your stomach fully satisfied.
The staff there are friendly and are able to offer each diner a personal service, meaning a trip to Coffee Bean is always a pleasant one, whether you’re going for a cup of tea and a cake or for a sit down meal.

This is another Southport stalwart I’ve been visiting since I was tiny, and I’m so glad it’s survived. Long before I gave up meat, when I was a littlun, my father and I had one very specific thing in common — we didn’t like our bacon cremated. Years later when my mother’s genetics started to fight with my father’s, I came round to her way of thinking and proceeded to set fire to every piece of bacon I cooked, you know, when it’s so burnt you can snap it. This broke my father’s heart as I was his sole companion in the fussy bacon department but once you’ve had a crispy BLT you never go back.
The point of this longwinded story is that the Coffee Bean (a great name conjured up long before coffee increased its importance in society, years before Starbuckses and Neros) always did bacon just as we liked — soft and yielding. And their bacon butties were legendary. It was the only place to go in Southport to get a decent down-​to-​earth bacon, sausage or egg sandwich, a greasy spoon with less grease and more class.
I’m so glad it’s still standing. It’s a top little spot and you can get a great cup of coffee, pot of tea (or indeed glass of milk, as was always my poison as a youngster) to wet your whistle. The food is simple and lovely, the staff are happy to be working there and the atmosphere’s fabulous. Please, keep these places going and don’t let the chains take over our lovely little seaside town, it’s imperative.