The best flat whites in Lincoln, and the roaster behind every cup
This is a collection, not a ranking. These are the six cafés Lincoln’s coffee guides recommend most consistently — every one appears in Visit Lincoln’s or Lincoln and Beyond’s current guide, and Stokes and Seven Districts in both — listed in no order of preference. We have not taste-tested them against each other, and the page does not pretend otherwise.
What it adds is the part that decides the cup. A flat white is mostly espresso, so the roaster shapes most of what you taste: four of these cafés roast their own coffee in Lincolnshire and two buy from named roasters elsewhere. Every roaster below is taken from the café or roaster itself rather than from another guide — for one café that gave a different answer — along with the company behind each business.
Roasted in Lincolnshire by the café's own business
These cafés pour coffee their own company roasts. If you want to taste a Lincoln roaster, start here.
- Stokes Lawn Coffee & Kitchen, CaféThe Lawn, Union Road, next to the Stokes roastery. Stokes has been roasting and serving coffee in Lincoln since 1902 and trades as R.W. STOKES & SONS, LIMITED, company 00331254, incorporated in 1937 and registered at The Lawn. The register shows the Peel family at the head of it: Nicholas William Peel a director since 2005 and Ann Elizabeth Peel since before 1991, alongside two directors appointed in 2020. This is the café closest to the roaster itself, and the fairest single place to judge what Stokes coffee tastes like.
- Stokes High Bridge Café, CaféOn the High Bridge over the Witham, in a Tudor building that Stokes says has stood on the medieval bridge since 1540. Same company and same roastery as The Lawn, so the flat white is the same coffee; you are choosing the room. Stokes also says it supplies hundreds of cafés, restaurants and tea shops across Lincolnshire, so the same beans turn up far beyond its own two Lincoln cafés.
- Madame Waffle, Café285 High Street. Its own website says it roasts its own beans, under the name “The Town”, and filters its water through a bespoke system for extraction. Trades as MADAME WAFFLE LTD, company 08872411, incorporated in February 2014 and registered at the café; Bruce Whetton has been its sole active director since June 2018. Open Wednesday to Saturday 9am to 5pm and Sunday 10am to 4pm, closed Monday and Tuesday.
- Seven Districts Coffee, Bailgate, Café1 St Paul’s Lane, just off the Bailgate, with a second city shop in the Waterside Shopping Centre. Seven Districts roasts its own coffee and houses two 12kg roasters in its flagship shop. It is independent and Lincolnshire-born but no longer small: its own site lists six coffee shops, including Welton, Nettleham, Harrogate and Sutton on Sea. SEVEN DISTRICTS LIMITED, company 11781505, has had Ellis Michael Purvis and Benjamin Mark Southall as directors since January 2019, and a separate SEVEN DISTRICTS LINCOLN LIMITED was formed in November 2024 with Southall as sole director.
Beans from a named roaster elsewhere
Independent cafés buying from an independent roaster outside Lincoln. Nothing wrong with that — it is how most good coffee shops work — but it is worth knowing whose coffee you are drinking.
- Coffee Aroma, Café24 Guildhall Street, LN1 1TR, trading since 2005. Its own website says it serves coffee roasted by Ozone Coffee, a UK speciality roaster, and leans towards single origins rather than a dark house blend. The limited company that once traded under its name, COFFEE AROMA (LINCOLN) LIMITED, was dissolved in January 2016; the café has carried on without one, so there is no current director to name from the register.
- Coffee Depot, Café43A Carholme Road, LN1 1RN, on the student side of the Brayford. Its own website names its house bean as Deer Hill by Dark Woods. That matters because at least one current Lincoln coffee guide names a different supplier for this café; the café’s own statement is the one used here. A small family-run shop. Open daily from 8.30am (9am Saturday, 9.30am Sunday) to 3pm, and late on Fridays. We did not match it to a company with confidence, so no owner is named.
Where to go next
If you want somewhere to sit for a few hours rather than a single cup, independent cafés in Lincoln for studying covers the cafés that suit a long stay. And best independent restaurants in Lincoln names the owner behind each one the same way this page does.
How this was checked
Each roaster was read on 13 September 2026 from a surface the café or roaster controls: Stokes’ and Seven Districts’ own sites, and the websites of Madame Waffle, Coffee Aroma and Coffee Depot. A roaster named only in someone else’s guide was not enough to list a café. Company numbers and directors were read from each company’s own Companies House page; where no company matched with confidence, the entry says so rather than naming anyone.
Three cafés are missing because we could not confirm their roaster from their own channels. The Mindful Mug says it sources hand-roasted beans but does not name the roaster; Coffee by the Arch and Coffee Cats have roasters attributed to them elsewhere that neither café confirms. They will be added when they do. 200 Degrees, on Cornhill, is a multi-city chain that roasts in Nottingham and is outside the scope of an independents page.