BNU welcomes you to our brand-new Garden Café!
This summer BNU is bringing the outside in with our new Garden Café, a new beautifully designed dining and social space for staff, students, and the public alike.
The café, located on the ground floor of the Gateway Building, opens on Tuesday 4 July, offering a wide range of nutritious, healthy, and sustainably sourced food, drinks, and snacks.
A bespoke menu has been designed by the University’s new catering partner Gather & Gather. Highlights include artisan breads loaded with fresh and seasonal ingredients such as toasted rye with Parma ham, honey, pear and whipped sorrel ricotta, as well as plant-based and halal certified food options. For the more indulgently minded, the café will offer an array of desserts, from sorbet to fresh fruits, to pretzels with chocolate ganache, hazelnuts & strawberries.
Alongside the amazing food options, the Garden café will also offer premium sustainable coffee, tea, and smoothie options, including the new BLEND* bar - a mixologists approach to fruit based drinks tailored and blended to order.
The new café has been created not only to have a positive impact on tastebuds but on the local community too. The indoor-outdoor flow from the café’s beautiful interiors to our newly planted Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Garden adds a touch of green to the High Wycombe town centre, enhancing our local environment with a landscaped grass area, mature trees, shrubs, and a bespoke new bench made locally by Oxford Wood Recycling from reclaimed wood from a primary school’s old roof. All providing ample space and a great opportunity for local organisations, other members of the community to come together.
As one of the local Town Ward Councillors I can say that I am proud to have such a wonderful facility as Buckinghamshire New University in our town centre. With the launch of the Garden Café, Buckinghamshire New University continues to showcase their commitment to the community and the environment, yet another wonderful addition that adds to the town’s café culture and is definitely a place to visit.Lesley Clarke OBE Local Councillor
In line with the University’s newly launched Sustainability Strategy, the café will place ethical sourcing and plastic-free living at the heart of its operations. Coffee will be provided by Modern Standard – an independent supplier committed to positive social impact - and all ingredients will meet with Gather & Gather’s high ethical standards that support local growers within the supply chain and source food from the British Isles wherever possible. The café will not use plastic plates or cutlery but instead will see a return to real crockery and cutlery for seated guests, and the use of plant-based compostable and disposable containers for those that decide to take food away.
The café, a part of BNU’s ongoing campus development project Building a Better BNU, comes at a time of growth and transition for the University as we head towards the development’s completion.
The Garden café marks an exciting milestone in the growth and development of our BNU campus. The cafe's location, directly opposite Wycombe Hospital, enables the space to act as a bridge between the town centre and Wycombe Rye, providing a serene space to refuel and relax for staff, students and the local community.Trevor Gabriele Chief Finance Officer and project lead for Building a better BNU
The café employs two full time members of staff, both of whom are High Wycombe residents, as well as one BNU student. By opening its doors during the school summer holidays it is hoped that the setting will earn a place in High Wycombe’s burgeoning café culture, becoming a firm favourite with all. Then, come the start of term, the menu will be tailored further to meet the palates of the time pushed student.
The Garden Café will be open 7 days a week from 09:00 – 19:00 weekdays and 09:00 – 15:00 on weekends.
