Common Ground Colchester

05/10/2026

What better way to celebrate the opening of the Banksy exhibition The Minories than to spend the evening with us, grooving and jamming at Elmer’s legendary Jazz night.

03/10/2026

Round 1, first question: where can you get all details and book your place? Answer: https://bit.ly/4hClbVI Yes, Brad the Inquisitor has risen again and it does seem to be true that no quizzer has ever seen him in daylight... Serious fun and all in a good cause, honest!
Quiz takes place 7-9pm - doors open from 6pm
Entry: £6 per person
Maximum 4 people in a team
Food and drink to buy on the night - open from 6pm for delicious grub🥗
Pub hamper prize for the winning team! And if your score isn't, well, quite..as high as it deserved to be...there's a raffle🥲

27/09/2026

Cafe Scientifique... not to be sniffed at!

We are opening our 16th Colchester Cafe Scientifique season on October 14 with the popular return of virus expert and book author, Dr David Miles. Tickets are going fast!

24/09/2026

Good Soul Bowls on the menu today 🌱 Homemade hummus, tomatoes from Heidi, spinach pesto using Bennison Farm spinach and cufu triangles from Turnbull's CuFu

10/09/2026

We have, not one, but two new chefs! Kris (pictured) is working several days each week, so we can look forward to some great lunches from this multi-talented guy! Kris moved to Colchester 11 years ago, having worked in a vegan cafe in Cambridge and on an organic farm. He has been vegan for 20 years, convinced not least following some key personal experiences. He says he is vegan for both "ethical reasons and the environmental connection." Our values here "resonated" with him for the opportunities for "Well-being, for true people spending quality time, which I've not found so much anywhere else in Colchester." Kris has volunteered for Community 360 and is qualified in event management and music technology - so he has much to offer, in addition to the superbly tasty food he cooked today. I've had the privilege of playing chess with his talented son Lucas, aged 10 and of meeting Kris' wife Yanxi.... she was apparently impressed with his coffee-making skills at the Cambridge cafe before she had to return to China, where Kris followed her, and the rest is romantic history! And on the subject of Asian dishes, Kris promises some interesting food to come. Kris, we are very lucky, privileged and delighted to have you on board!

09/09/2026

You've probably seen in the Gazette or on socials www.facebook.com/patchcolchester that our good friends at Patch vegan/vegetarian restaurant in Trinity St. are having to close at the end of the year. Colleagues and friends here see this as a local tragedy, for the plant-based cause and for high-quality, innovative, independent hospitality trade in general. When you know something of the passion and sheer relentless long hours of graft these people put in it is worrying to think they can have such success with thousands of delighted customers and yet increasing costs of all kinds finally forced them, like others, to quit. Here we are all too aware of the huge pressure of increasing overheads - perhaps people outside such businesses don't quite realise how much of the price of a humble cup of coffee goes straight to suppliers, landlord, utility companies, licensing, maintenance, taxes and wages..... before any money can be retained for improvements, let alone a surplus. We rely heavily on our brilliant, willing and cheerful member-volunteers at peak times. We would be bust in a few weeks without them. But we believe in what we offer, what we stand for and what our local supporters want, and so, for as long as its viable, we intend to keep going. Thank you to Patch for all the life-enhancing nourishment and entertainment, and go and enjoy yourself there while you still can!

patch is a vegetarian plant-led restaurant in the heart of Colchester est September 2022

06/09/2026

Hope this is not too self-indulgent, but my mum just found this photo from 20 years ago. Guessing the frame was part of an artwork, not a five-a-side goal? Does anyone know who was running the cafe then? Please feel free to let us have some other archive stuff... (photo shows my late dad, kneeling and a late grandmother of the two girls, one of whom is now a mum herself and a graduate in French, the other a doctor training to be a GP. Here's hoping The Minories and its cafe continue to frame the lives of future Colcestrians!

31/08/2026

Maybe we don't say this enough, but The Commons is about community, albeit through coffee and local organic plant-based food... Here's a bonus from our community: Marley Karazimba co-founded us and has worked brilliantly in the kitchen, the board meetings and online to keep the cafe going. Now he's passed on (most of!) the work here to others, but he's not gone away. Listen to his life story, his work in food and farming and his creative journey in Friday's interview on BBC Suffolk here www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00308hv at 1:11:09 into the show. See his astonishing film: Don't fight the land that feeds you at www.youtube.com/watch?v=juYIH9YC9oc and keep up with his pioneering life at www.instagram.com/mind.of.marley/ Catch him live in Felixstowe on 12 September, book at https://reimaginethis.life/events/art-community-ecology-Felixstowe-meet-ups Or just offer to buy him a coffee at the caff and hear about his vision for land, community, food and creativity!?

28/08/2026

Our enterprising creative host, the art gallery, has just opened their new online art shop at https://the-minories.myshopify.com/
I don't know about you, but several coffees and some cake in the cafe seems to promise great benefit in trying to calibrate my trigger-happy mouse-clicking fingers....

The Minories Online Art Shop, East Anglian Artists, Original Artwork, Prints, Textiles and Ceramics.