A new Figment café is opening next week, offering award-winning coffee and pastries in Aberdeen’s West End.
This is the second café for business owner Neil Glover who opened Figment on Countesswells Road six years ago.
After a soft opening this week, the team are even more excited to get started at the Fountainhall Road unit.
“We’ve had so much love,” says Neil.
“People are excited for us to move into the area, wondering what it was going to be like. Because we’ve been teasing this for months now.
“It has been really positive.”
New Figment café Aberdeen will ‘bring a little bit of joy’
Neil hopes new café will become “the heart of the community”.
“We want to create a beautiful space,” he continues.
“So that it doesn’t matter what’s going on in your day, you have five minutes to get a beautiful coffee and something nice to eat that somebody has poured some love into.
“However you come in, you walk out feeling a little bit better.
“And it’s not a catchphrase or a cliché, I find that important in my life.
“Because you can genuinely change someone’s day and bring a little bit of joy.
“That’s certainly the feeling we’ve had these first few days we’ve been open; it’s been really nice.”
The new café, opening officially on March 24, will be open Monday to Friday 8am-2pm.
Neil says the café might open at the weekends going forward.
“People have already been asking for that,” he adds.
“We could maybe open for a few hours at the weekend just to give people their caffeine fix.”
And the team hope to open the sit-in space in the building next-door this summer.
He adds: “We want to turn that into a beautiful sit-in space – a smaller version of what we have up the road.”
‘Utterly transformed’ Aberdeen café
Renovating the Fountainhall Road unit has involved “absolutely loads” of work, says Neil.
“We thought we could pretty much move straight in as it had been a coffee shop before,” he explains.
“But we had to really transform the entire space.
“We replaced all the flooring.
“And we have lined the walls with this amazing washed wood, and added fresh terracotta tiles.
“It’s got this really nice natural, minimalist feeling. It is a very beautiful light space.
“Before, you walked in and straight away the counter was there, and there were always queues out the door.
“So now we’ve changed the layout so that we’re actually bringing people into the space.
“Hopefully that will feel nice for our customers.”
Figment café is well-loved for their award-winning coffee, which the team roast themselves in the back of the Airyhall café.
“A lot of people don’t realise that we roast our own coffee,” he adds.
“We want to be a world class coffee roaster based here in Aberdeen.”
Neil prioritises a “quality-led” menu, utilising local producers including Aberdeen’s The Bread Maker.
Aberdeen’s new Figment café will serve a range of bakes and pastries.
“We bake nearly everything in our bakery up the road,” he says.
“We’re a little bit famous for our triple chocolate brownies, and our carrot cake is amazing.
“And our cinnamon buns are absolutely fantastic.”
The café will also offer the nostalgic and well-loved empire biscuits, made with “an old granny’s recipe”.
And from next week, Neil is hoping to add “thick, flavourful” freshly made sandwiches to the menu too.
Conversation