Mad Hatters Catering Ltd

Disregarding the strangely wholesome Christian vibe to The Gate — as if you didn’t feel sacrilegious ordering a beer in an old church already — their café bar, open independently during the day, is a nice idea. The side entrance is enough to confuse even those who have frequented The Gate’s main venue regularly for gigs and the like. It’s basically the same downstairs space used as a bar during shows in the main hall and ordinarily accessed from a corridor running from the front of the building. But while you can still grab a beverage, alcoholic or otherwise, from an imaginatively stocked range, in office hours they also do food. Local company Mad Hatters handle the catering, serving up a good range of freshly made sandwiches, salads, soups and more. It can be deathly quiet after any lunch rush, though, so it’s probably not the ideal destination if all you want is an inconspicuous cuppa on your lonesome: it’s difficult to melt into the background if the only other people in the room are staff.

In my opinion, there is not too much worth lingering about for on Crwys Road so it does strike me as a little strange that so many cafés have sprung up here.
Don’t get me wrong, I always love a chance to top up my caffeine levels, no matter where in the world I happen to be. But there really is an abundance of coffee-​houses here filling a need that I don’t think exists.
Nevertheless, this place provides decent milkshakes at nice prices, so if you really have to get out of the house it ticks the right boxes.
But as a place to chill out, it will never quite becomes accomplished. I’m a fan of a café with a corner to curl into with a book or spot of writing. The Mad Hatter’s, however, seems like a bit of a walkway from door to counter so you never get that craved state of peace and quiet. It also means that your reading is often disturbed by staff coming in, or unloading stock.
URBAN CHALLENGE: Release a copy of Alice in Wonderland here. See:

So, if you see my other review for The Gate in general, you’ll see that the website kind of tells you what is happening, but not really. Well, the same can be said for the Café Bar — doesn’t give opening hours, has a quiz that I’m not sure is a quiz and in general, while it is lovely, I might just turn up and see.
What I do often go for, however, is the regular open mic night on a Thursday. The night has two alternating hosts, which keeps the music fresh, and with the term ‘arts centre’ comes a greater variety of music and musical genres. Here I’ve seen pop songs, singer songwriters, contemporary cello soloists, novelty songs, music hall, experimental music and even a stand up! If you like the more varied this would be a good night to head down.
I’ve popped in during the day, and the small bar/​café is a lovely place to spend some time. They have bottled beers, wines, soft drinks (a good variety and you don’t get a funny look in the evening if you don’t want booze) and hot drinks. The food is good — relatively healthy and reasonably priced. I certainly couldn’t complain. And although I’ve managed to resist, the cakes in the cabinet look amazing!
The only criticism I would have is that when there are events in the main hall and events in the Café Bar the Café Bar can often be disrupted by the large number of interval and end of night concert goers. But it can’t be bad if ‘too busy’ is a criticism!

I do love Mad Hatter’s café quite a lot. It’s one of those unashamedly quirky cafes that seem to exist on every major street in every city across the UK. But whilst the majority of those cafes owe their continued existence to inflated prices and the pretentious hipsters who are willing to pay for the privilege of «being seen» in those places, Mad Hatter’s gets by on good food, good prices and good service.
It’s a ridiculously small place though which can at times be incredibly inconvenient; when you enter a shop to find that the entire thing is taken up by a queue, that’s both a good sign and a bad one. However, when it’s not packed out with customers, the small size of the place lends a wonderful intimacy to the place. There’s something fantastic about talking to the staff whilst sat in a chair with a book in your lap and not having to raise your voice.
One other thing that I love about this place is that when my friend lived next door, the manager politely asked them if, in return for all the unsold sandwiches at the end of the day, they could leave their rubbish bags in my friend’s bins. That kind of thing just fosters good community spirits (and excellent sandwich parties).

When you go into this café you find yourself practically sitting on someone’s lap. It is just the smallest place that anyone has ever made a café out of. The furniture is small and yet somehow still too big. Despite the fact that you’ll feel like a galumphing giant, you will almost definitely love this place. The service is excellent and the food is top-​notch (luckily, because there are a number of good cafes on this street). There is no feeling of pretension here, as can happen sometimes in ‘quirky’ places. Instead, there is just a lovely relaxed, almost family-​like atmosphere. My only point is that you just HAVE to get there before the lunch time rush because there is hardly any seating.