Welcome to Hot Rocket - our new café operator
We're delighted to announce that Hot Rocket has been appointed as the new operator of the café in our Lower Yard on the Riverside, following an open tender.
Hot Rocket is a small independent business led by Andrew Taylor, who brings over 30 years' experience in hospitality, from Michelin-starred restaurants to cafés, food vans and festivals. Hot Rocket has spent years serving film sets, events and locations across the country -and the Lower Yard will be its first permanent home.
Come and try it from Tuesday 8 September
Hot Rocket will start on Tuesday 8 September with a mobile trailer on the Lower Yard, serving coffee and offering samples of their food so you can try what's coming. The permanent café in the Lower Yard building will follow once the space has been fitted out.
The full offer will be great barista coffee, speciality teas and cold drinks, freshly baked pastries and cakes, and a lunch menu of deli sandwiches, salads and grab-and-go options - a daytime, family-friendly, alcohol-free café for museum visitors, families, riverside walkers and neighbours alike.
Andrew Taylor of Hot Rocket said:
"We're beyond excited to have won the tender for the café at Cambridge Museum of Technology and to be putting down some permanent roots so close to home.
"From the beginning, we really connected with the Museum team's vision for the Lower Yard and the wider site. We want the café to feel like it genuinely belongs here, and we've got plans to give the space a new lease of life while taking inspiration from the Museum's industrial heritage and the history that surrounds it.
"Food and drink will be very much what people know us for: great barista coffee, speciality teas and cold drinks, freshly baked pastries and cakes, alongside a really decent lunch offering of deli sandwiches, salads and plenty of grab-and-go options. We're a small independent business, and working with brilliant local producers and suppliers wherever we can will continue to be a big part of what we do.
"What makes this opportunity particularly exciting is the sense of collaboration around the site. We're looking forward to working closely with the Museum, as well as having Scott's and Calverley's as neighbours, and becoming part of the brilliant community that already exists around Riverside.
"We've spent years taking Hot Rocket to film sets, events and locations all over the country, so having a permanent home somewhere as unique as this feels like a really exciting next chapter for us."
Why Hot Rocket
The tender was open and attracted multiple bids from a range of independent operators, each assessed against the same published criteria. What impressed us about Hot Rocket's proposal was a café concept genuinely rooted in the site and its heritage, a food offer that caters for the needs of all our visitors, and a clear appetite to work collaboratively with the Museum and its neighbours on the future of the Lower Yard. It stood out for how clearly it addressed our vision for the site — and we believe it's a café people will want to come back to.
Hot Rocket follows Kerb Kollective, whose six years at the Museum came to an end on Monday. The business Rory and his team built here is genuinely impressive, and we wish them every success at Ditton Walk and beyond.
Coffee this week
Coffee continues at the Riverside through the transition:
Tuesday 1 – Thursday 3 September: Lower Yard closed for handover
Friday 4 – Sunday 6 September: Gnawtybites, a local independent, serving coffee and pastries from their van (this weekend only)
Monday 7 September: Lower Yard closed
From Tuesday 8 September: Hot Rocket's trailer opens
Why the café matters
The Museum is a charity run almost entirely by volunteers, caring for a Victorian pumping station and a nationally important Scheduled Monument. The income we receive from the café goes directly back into keeping this remarkable site open for everyone -a café that thrives here is part of how a place like this survives.
Follow Hot Rocket at instagram.com/hotrocketfood and check back here for opening hours and news as the café takes shape. We hope to see you on the 8th.