Monday Food Top Picks In Shrewsbury - Shrewsbury Restaurant Week 2024
It’s Shrewsbury Restaurant Week!
This marvellous scheme has been cooked up by the wonderful people at Original Shrewsbury, and is set around showing off the amazing food scene we have in Shrewsbury!
I bloody adore the food culture in our town. Packed with independents, I think we are genuinely spoiled! We should all stand so proud that we have created a town where independent businesses can thrive. It’s proper inspirational!
There’s one problem with towns packed with independents……..MONDAYS!
When you have a town packed with independents it also means that you’ve got a town packed with business owners who are working flat out all week, waiting tables, chopping veg, anchoring behind the stove, washing up, trying to sort their weekly admin whilst also diffusing totally irrational toddler meltdowns - its a lot to fit into a week. Couple this with the fact that as a small business it is really hard to deal with quiet days, low foot fall days, they just can’t afford to open when they are already spinning so many plates. So what’s going to give? Most likely a Monday! So town doesn’t have the usual endless choice that it does from say Wednesday - Sunday.
If you’re like me, Mondays are basically your Saturdays. The only guaranteed day to be free, the kids are even at school or nursery. Mondays feel like the old days. The free days, as I call them. Those heady days when you could roll out of bed whenever in the morning (that doesn’t actually happen, the kids have to get to school in some way, but we can all dream, right?), you could even go for a spontaneous pint at lunchtime if you wanted without having had to get a CSI board out to work out how you can make it happen! I won’t go as far as say they were ‘the happy days’ but they are great memories!
Mondays are a strange beast. A day when the most hospitality driven people are looking for hospitality, only to realise that they WERE the hospitality so all that’s left is to sort of stand around outside together looking into closed restaurants and cafes.
But fear not - Shrewsbury Restaurant Week is here and so is the master of where to eat on a Monday in town!……(I’m implying that’s me by the way…so try not to be too disappointed if you were expecting something more than that).
Well, I thought I was the master of where to eat on a Monday in town, but ends up I’m clueless and narrow-minded! There are a whopping 12 places on the list that are open. I honestly thought it was about 3! How exciting?!
I’ve looked through the list of places on the Shrewsbury Restaurant Week list and picked out the places that I think would be worth a punt for a delicious start to the week…….
Hopefully Made, Milk St - Hot Drink & A Cake £5, Hot Drink & A Bagel £8
This is less of a recommendation and more of a love letter!
Hopefully Made is like mine and my wife’s Zen Garden. Its the epitome of relaxation and chill. I walk into this place and I just calm down. We actually rarely take the kids in now, this has become like our safe space, we don’t want to associate it with the wonderful and adorable stress that our kids seem to naturally bring with them.
It’s like our debriefing room on a Monday after a busy weekend. We get our week in order, lay out the plans, workout childcare pinch points and generally bang heads on how we are going to survive another week of self employment and parenting.
The vibes are what makes this place. The music, the lighting. The just general lovely laid back atmosphere. Not to mention the lovely staff - they either have the most amazing recruitment skills or the greatest training programme on earth!
It just so happens that they also serve really lovely Hundred House Coffee (locally roasted in Ludlow) and their menu is also entirely gluten free. But they dont shout about it. They dont need to, the quality of their ingredient sourcing is so good that even that hardened gluten guzzling connoisseur would struggle to notice that everything was gluten free. Dare I say it, some gluten free items are better than their ‘normal’ gluten packed cousins.
The bagels are out of this world! The choices of fillings are excellent, I never get bored of them and often struggle to decide which to get! It’s also hard to comprehend that they are gluten free. We often buy a bag to take home and stick in our freezer! The moment I saw the bagels on their offer - I knew this was making my list for the week! Such great value! It is such a welcoming, friendly and inclusive coffee shop/cafe - you have to try it!
Cafe On The Severn, Chester St - 15% Off, Plus Special Menu Items
I’ve had my eye on this place for a while now!
It’s on my Monday radar but for some reason we never quite make it over. The vibe it’s giving me is just classic cafe done really well. I have looked over their menus a few times and there is always something that grabs my interest.
The food looks and feels homely and homemade and price wise, it seems bang on the money!
Definitely worth a punt and with 15% off I’m not sure you can actually go far wrong?
What really grabbed my interest were the specials: Masala Potatoes, Fried Eggs & Green Chutney - I mean, come on! Get right in my mouth. That is my kind of Monday brunch!
Then for pudding? How about a Miso, Dark Chocolate & Hazelnut Cookie?
It is literally like that are just listing my favourite things all together! I think this Monday might be time for my Cafe On The Severn baptism!
Outset Coffee, Castle St - Full English Special & 20% Off Accompanying Drinks
Outset are a coffee shop newbie to the town. It’s really hard to set up a coffee shop in a town where there are literally endless coffee shops, but what Outset have done is really find their feet quickly.
They’ve settled into a little gap nicely. They serve speciality coffee but in a really approachable way. They always have 2 or 3 coffees to choose from. The staff are great, knowledgable, really friendly and helpful and quite obviously keen to serve you well - which they always have done to me!
I look at Outset as a really great example of even more progress in our town. If you fancy a learning a little more about the coffee you drink, head there and start your journey in a really lovely and unassuming atmosphere.
Another thing Outset have got right so far is the vibes - I am big on my vibes. I feed off the environment I’m in, so finding places to work from is hard for me. It depends on my mood A LOT! Places need to be busy enough to make me feel at home but not too cramped that I feel pressurised. Outset is just right! I am finding myself working from there more and more lately.
I’ve eaten there before and thoroughly enjoyed what I ate. They seem to manage to offer something slightly different to everyone else but without trying to hard - which is super endearing! I love it!
My recommendation for Outset is to go, order the full English and use that 20% to get yourself a V60 coffee - dive in and enjoy the experience!
Cromwell’s Tap House, Dogpole - New Menu Launch & 10% Off
If I had to choose a place for a pint, I’d be choosing Cromwells!
Great choice of beers, lovely pub, lovely secluded beer garden with great big brollies on every table so the changing weather doesn’t matter.
The staff are always really knowledgeable, they know what they are serving and always ready to answer any questions. The beers change regularly which is always a plus point! It’s also really worth pointing out that they always have a great selection of Gluten Free beers to try - which is rare in this town!
I haven’t eaten here since it became Cromwell’s Tap House, but I would very much be tempted to have a nosey at their new menu, have a couple of pints and exploit that 10% discount to give it a go!
Osteria v2.0, Mardol - Free Limoncello Spritz With Every Meal
I almost can’t believe it myself that I haven’t tried this place yet! Multi award winning restaurant, serving my favourite style of food - Italian comfort food!
I think it was Midlands Best Italian Restaurant and Midlands Best Italian Chef that they recently won….for the second year in a row. So they must be doing something right?
If you are looking for a bit more of a meal on a Monday that offers something a little different to anywhere else in town, then this would be my wild card pick for Restaurant Week Monday I think!
I have heard great things about their pizzas!
You just can’t ignore the awards and the free Limoncello Spritz with every meal is just about as Italian as an offer will ever get!
Best of The Rest For Monday……..
We are only into day 1 of Restaurant Week and I already feel like I am spoilt for choice! What a delicious week it’s going to be!
Here is a run down of the other places open on Monday, so have an explore and see what might tickle your fancy! This is about getting adventurous, remember!
CSons - Mystery Menu (Thursday Only) & Restaurant Week Competition
Plantkind - 15% Off When ordering Online, Code RESTWEEK15
The Crown Abbey Foregate - Specials & A Chance to Win Sunday Lunch for 4
The Beefy Boys - Classic Single Patty & Plain Fries £15
Dough & Oil - Special ‘El Gringo’ Pizza All Week
Dipp’d - Regular Tea, Coffee, Hot Choc or Festive Hot Drink & Cookie £6
Cote Brasserie - 3 Courses and a Glass For A Set Price
