Cycle cafe project time. (Cafe No. 28, Holt)

No. 28 cafe,

Holt,

Opening times Mon-Sat 08:30-16:00

For today's cafe cycle ride I was targeting two of my current cafe cycle projects:

1. The destination was Cafe No. 28 in Holt, which as a numbered cafe, would add to my attempt to go to all numbered named cafes from 1 to 100. 
2. Holt is a destination where I have visited a lot of cafes, as given the opportunity Andrew (who is notoriously hard to please) will always take me there if I offer him a free hand to arrange a route. This meant that today there would potentially be several Holt cafes I could pick up sausage rolls from as part of my search for Sausage Roll Of The Year (SROTY). 

So I arranged to meet Andrew, at Hard to Please House in Alysham, for a ride to Holt to tackle these two objectives. As a bonus, Chris (Mrs Crusader) came along as she continued to get used to her new bike.

The ride from Alysham to Holt goes through some lovely peaceful Norfolk countryside. However today the peace was shattered. First Andrew was ranting about how; since I gave him the notoriously hard to please tag he had to rant even more as people now expected it.(So he did). But the main peace breaker was from Mrs Crusaders new bike that had developed an annoying mystery squeak, the source of which still remains elusive despite much investigation during the ride. ( Although I remain confident that some WD40 and my big hammer will get it fixed back in my secret bike workshop under Crusader Towers).

With my head throbbing, we arrived at Holt and I went to pick up my first sausage roll from the Owl Tearooms. But disaster as it was shut for refurbishment as it is moving under new management.

What no sausage roll

Undeterred it was off to the main event at No. 28 on the high street. When we arrived the very friendly staff told us a good place to park our bikes which we did, before going through the two table outdoor seating area into the cafe. 

In the outdoor seating area at No.28 before going to lock the bikes

Inside was a very modern interior where we selected a table near the window. The cake selection was a reasonable one with several sponge cakes, slices and scones, so I awarded a reasonable effective cake selection (ECS) rating.

The sponge cake part of the cake selection

I was pleased to see sausage rolls on the menu so I would be able to get my Holt SROTY search underway but before I could the people in front of us bought the last ones. I was beginning to worry that the SROTY part of today's mission would be a waste of time. 

Our drinks (Hot Chocolate, Mocha and Cappuccino) soon arrived which were all nice but we felt needed to be a bit stronger for top marks. 

Hot drink selection

These were followed by a good selection of the sponge cakes (Victoria, Lemon and carrot) which my cycling guests let me try all of before I decided my choice of Victoria sponge was the best.

The three sponge cakes on offer

With the cafe visit complete I added No. 28 to my numbered named cafe album only to find I already had a No. 28 from the Cotswolds that I had visited on my ride across Great Britain a couple of years ago. I therefore now have a No. 28 swap that I'm happy to exchange with other numbered named cafe collectors who have a spare numbered cafe visit as well.

On the SROTY front I was relieved to find that Byfords had plenty and I was also able to snap up the last one at Horatio's before we left Holt again for our ride back.

Collecting Holt based sausage rolls

Back home I tested out the sausage rolls which were two of the best I have tried so far and could well make it all the way to the SROTY sausage roll off at the end of the year. 

The Byfords and Horatio's sausage rolls

Scores

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
5.5	6.0	6.0	6.5	7.0	6.20

Route

Click here to download 32 Mile Alysham Holt loop GPX file for your GPS