John Watt& Son

Brothers John and James Watt opened as grocers and tea merchants in 1865, and the firm has held 11 Bank Street since its first shop came down in 1897 — a hundred and twenty-odd years of Carlisle buying its coffee at the same counter. Peter and Carol Johnston own it now, credited locally with saving the business when it might have gone under, and the roasting continues daily on a 15-kilo heritage machine at the Blackfriars Street works — around 180 kilos of arabica a day, which for a firm this size is a working answer to every chain in town. The café at the front does what it has always done; the beans leave by the bag.