Café operator Bean moves into Liverpool Innovation Park

Bean’s new café@LIP will occupy a 500 sq ft space within the Park’s main reception, together with an additional 1,223 sq ft fully branded seating area, opening out onto an external terrace providing additional fair weather seating within the Park’s picturesque gardens.

It will officially open on 1st September 2011.

The new facility completes the recent £4M project to create a new main reception, networking hubs and meeting spaces at the Edge Lane campus.

In keeping with Park’s innovation focus, the entire café area will be 100Mps wifi enabled and will provide an informal space for the site’s 80 resident companies to enjoy and entertain visitors.

Dr Mark Tock, innovation manager at Liverpool Innovation Park, said the contemporary Bean coffee shop will provide a new focal point for business and social networking activities.

Dr Tock said: “The café marks the final piece in the jigsaw of the recent £4M redevelopment of the Edge Lane main reception area and we are delighted to welcome Bean into the Park.
bean@LIP will compliment existing catering facilities located on our adjacent Wavertree Technology Park site, and further enhance the Park’s sense of community. While longer term, this is another step towards achieving the vision of expanding our amenities to include a gym and crèche facilities to service both our tenants and adjacent residential communities.”

bean@LIP will be offering a wide range of produce including high quality speciality coffees, sandwiches, soups, paninis, and homemade cakes. It will also offer onsite catering for business lunches and a support service for LIP’s new meeting facilities.

Bean, established in 2008, has coffee shops across Liverpool and Manchester. The company’s Co-Directors Jon Whyte and Vip Bhatt have big plans.  Jon said:  “Our mobile coffee van, the ‘Bean Machine’, has been visiting Liverpool Innovation Park daily for over a year now and we are really looking forward to becoming permanent residents. Bean@LIP is our fifth coffee shop and we have ambitious growth plans for the next 18 months.”

Liverpool Innovation Park is operated by Space North West, a joint venture between Ashtenne Industrial Fund and the Northwest Regional Development Agency, and forms a key component of Merseyside’s knowledge economy.

For more information about Liverpool Innovation Park call 01512614665 or visit www.liverpoolinnovationpark.com