The Edward Boyle Library is set to open its first café ready for second semester. Great Food at Leeds have announced that the coffee shop ‘The Book Club’ will be located on level nine, and have released a sneak peek video of the new modern cafe, with wooden tables and bright chairs.

The unveiling of the café in January marks the final stage of the Edward Boyle revamp. The fully refurbished library should offer over 2,000 study spaces to students, bookable group spaces and IT clusters. The final reveal should mark the end of the noise of the construction work and, instead, provide a ‘comfortable, inspiring and technology rich study environment’, according to the University of Leeds.

So far, the news of a coffee shop in the Edward Boyle has been very well received with students commenting that ‘it looks very pretty’ and ‘will be a new alternative to Costa’. The cafe has also given some hope to students as a lunch spot solution to the strict ‘no food or drink in the library’ policy.

The opening of ‘The Book Club’ café is yet another change to the facilities offered at the University of Leeds. Since winter 2015, the Union has been in the process of having a complete upgrade.  The nightclub Mine has now been transformed into another café called ‘Pyramid’, the Old Bar has had a make-over and the Hidden Café is set to reopen at the beginning of next year too. The area that used to be occupied by CATS, the charity shop and Univision will be replaced by a ‘market square area’ which will hold updated retail units, stall spaces and an area of communal seating.

Faith Dunne 

(Image: University of Leeds)