WatchHouse

Overview

WatchHouse was founded in 2014 by Roland Horne in a former 19th-century watch house at the southern end of Bermondsey Street, originally built between 1810 and 1812 to guard the graveyard of St Mary Magdalen's Church from grave robbers. The 2020 Maltby Street Roastery — designed by Kirkwood McCarthy in a railway arch that previously housed Monmouth Coffee — anchors a chain that now runs more than twenty Houses across London, New York and Dubai, and was named Europe's Best Coffee Shop Chain at the 2024 European Coffee & Hospitality Awards.

Known for

• Founded 2014 by Roland Horne in a 19th-century Bermondsey watch house originally built to guard the St Mary Magdalen graveyard from body-snatchers
• Maltby Street Roastery and Coffee Lab opened 2020 in a railway arch previously occupied by Monmouth Coffee, designed by Kirkwood McCarthy
• Twenty-plus Houses across London, New York and Dubai under the 'Modern Coffee' positioning
• Three-tier Rituals / Ventures / Rarities coffee programme
• Named Europe's Best Coffee Shop Chain at the 2024 European Coffee & Hospitality Awards

Why it matters

Most London specialty roasters scaled by selling wholesale; WatchHouse scaled by building cafes, and Horne's bet that the design of the room and the warmth of the welcome could carry specialty coffee to people who would never enter a Workshop or a Square Mile cafe is the reason it now operates more like a hospitality brand than a roastery. The chain reaching New York and Dubai before most of its London peers reached a second London location is itself the data point.

Production

destoning

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head roaster

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color sorting

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roaster machine

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filter equipment

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cupping frequency

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roastery location

36 Maltby Street, Bermondsey, London SE1

espresso equipment

ModBar (multiple sites)

annual volume tonnes

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Café

Bermondsey Street (original House); Maltby Street (Roastery); plus 18+ further sites across London, New York and Dubai

Recognitions

• Europe's Best Coffee Shop Chain – 2024 European Coffee & Hospitality Awards

Sources

• https://mtpak.coffee/2025/08/watchhouse/
• https://www.thebitemag.com/2020/08/13/watch-house/
• https://www.localspecialtycoffee.com/specialty-coffee-place/watchhouse-roastery
• https://bermondseystreet.london/watchhouse-to-celebrate-ten-years-on-bermondsey-street/
• https://southwarknews.co.uk/area/bermondsey/10-years-of-bermondseys-watchhouse/
• https://premierconstructionnews.com/2020/12/04/watch-house-somerset-house/