Runway Café Development 2025/6

We're excited to share all of the details of our 2025/26 Runway Café re-development with you. This page will be updated as the project progresses so you can see the developments taking place in real time.

Why are we carrying out this project?

Over recent years, the Runway Café has seen several small (mostly aesthetic) updates but no significant development has taken place in the kitchen or main Café area.

We know how much our visitors enjoy the Café and how, on busy days, this can often lead to queues. To ensure we can provide you with the very best service, we are taking the opportunity to re-develop the Café layout and visual design whilst we are undertaking a significant update to our kitchen.

Aesthetically, we're excited to be able to tell the story of Shuttleworth within this space through this project too - adding relevant imagery and artefacts to the decor.

What you'll see...

From December, the Sun Room of the Runway Café will close, enabling us to develop the area into our new Coffee Shop space (see below for more detail about the area). Once completed, we will then close the main Café and kitchen - during which time the Coffee Shop space will be open to ensure that a food offering will always be available during the project (though this may be a reduced menu).

During this time, we appreciate your patience whilst the Café entrances occasionally change. Our main Visitor Centre will be unaffected during this time.

The Kitchen

Brand new equipment will be fitted so that we can upscale our food offering. A new extraction system will also ensure that air flow will be improved avoiding any smells carrying out into the main Café area.

The Coffee Shop

Our current 'Sun Room' area will become our Coffee Shop, where a counter system will be installed allowing you to purchase hot drinks and light bites, including warmed items like toasted sandwiches and pastries. This area will allow for increased handmade cold drinks options too. A breakfast bar, style area will be included in this space.

The Café

The newly developed main Café area will have the current counter removed and fixed booth seating installed alongside the current tables and chairs. In order to address queues during busy periods, we'll be implementing a QR code ordering system enabling you to order food and drink from your table.

How we'll keep you up to date...

This project page will be updated as we progress and we will be posting regular social media updates on how things are looking. We love to speak to you and share how things are going so you can also come to site and see for yourself how things are changing each week.