Alfreton Road isn’t exactly short of people going somewhere.
Students heading into lectures. People on their way to work. Cars moving in and out of the city. Someone trying to squeeze lunch into forty minutes. Someone else with nowhere particularly urgent to be.
That made it feel like the right place for our second AM Coffee & Bakery.
After opening in Beeston, we wanted the Nottingham shop to feel recognisably AM without simply copying everything into a different postcode.
The coffee stayed. The croissants definitely stayed. So did the green, earthy interior and the kind of menu that makes ordering “just a coffee” surprisingly difficult.
But Alfreton Road has a rhythm of its own.
More room to stay a while
The first thing you notice at AM Nottingham is the space.
The café stretches across two levels, with a mixture of smaller tables, larger tables, window seating and comfortable spots where you can properly settle in.
That matters because not everybody uses a coffee shop in the same way.
Some people are in and out in fifteen minutes. Others are meeting a friend. Some have opened a laptop before their coffee has even reached the table.
Then there are the people who planned to stay for one drink and somehow find themselves looking at the lunch menu an hour later.
We know the type.
Coffee first
There are mornings when nothing needs to be complicated.
Espresso. Americano. Flat white. Cappuccino.
Job done.
Then there are the days when a Spanish latte sounds better, or an iced blueberry matcha catches your eye, or somebody at the next table orders a Rainbow Iced Matcha and suddenly your original decision feels slightly boring.
The Nottingham menu sits comfortably between the familiar and the more colourful side of AM.
You can keep things classic, or you can order something that is almost guaranteed to appear on somebody’s camera roll before the first sip.
The pastry counter causes problems
The sensible plan is usually coffee.
The pastry counter has other ideas.
There are classic croissants, but they’re sharing space with pistachio cream, tiramisu cream, Biscoff, Nutella, berries, chocolate and other fillings that make the phrase “I’ll just have a drink” increasingly difficult to defend.
The pistachio croissant has become one of those things people recognise immediately.
The tiramisu version isn’t exactly shy either.
And if you’re sharing, it is worth establishing in advance what “just one bite” actually means.
Then breakfast turns into lunch
AM isn’t only somewhere to pick up coffee and pastry.
The Nottingham menu moves from breakfast into proper lunch territory without much effort.
There are Eggs Benedict, Eggs Florentine and Eggs Royale, alongside smashed avocado with feta, smoked salmon on toast, mushrooms with pesto and fried eggs, and whipped feta finished with hot honey.
There is also the Matcha Breakfast Bowl with yoghurt and fruit if you want something lighter.
Stay a little longer and the focaccia starts making a strong case for itself.
Mortadella with tomato, mozzarella, rocket and basil pesto. Spicy salami. Chicken with mozzarella and pesto. Mozzarella with tomato and olives.
This is usually the point where coffee somehow becomes lunch.
Nottingham gets a few extras of its own
The Alfreton Road menu also has a few things you won’t find in quite the same way at Beeston.
There are milkshakes, protein shakes, illyCrema and a substantial dessert selection ranging from pistachio cheesecake and tiramisu to cannoli, cakes and éclairs.
Which means arriving after breakfast doesn’t exactly solve the choosing problem.
It just changes the options.
A coffee shop should fit into the area around it
One of the reasons Alfreton Road made sense for AM was the mix of people already here.
There are students nearby, people working in and around the city, local residents and a constant flow of people moving between Nottingham neighbourhoods and the centre.
A café in that kind of location needs to work for more than one type of visit.
It needs to be somewhere you can grab a coffee quickly, but also somewhere you don’t feel awkward staying for a while.
Somewhere for breakfast before the day starts.
Somewhere to meet.
Somewhere to open a laptop.
Somewhere to stop because the alternative is sitting in traffic.
Preferably with a croissant involved.
The second AM, but still AM
Opening another location could easily have meant making everything bigger, louder or more complicated.
That wasn’t really the idea.
The Nottingham branch keeps the parts of Beeston that people already know: the coffee, the bakery counter, the relaxed interior, the food and the family-run feel.
Alfreton Road simply gives it another home.
If you’re passing, come in.
If you’re not passing, the pistachio croissant makes a fairly convincing argument for changing direction.
Visit AM Coffee & Bakery Nottingham
AM Coffee & Bakery Nottingham
135 Centre Court
Alfreton Road
Radford, Nottingham
NG7 3JL
Open daily from 8:30am to 5pm.
Coffee, brunch, pastries and a little more room than you planned to stay for.
