Motorcycle parking in a city centre shouldn’t be an afterthought, it should just work, the same as it does for any other vehicle. St Albans actually gets this right, and it’s worth knowing exactly how: dedicated motorcycle bays tucked down side streets, council car parks that don’t charge bikes a penny, and a bit of local knowledge that took a fair few visits to piece together properly. Over five days, five different stops, five different reasons to ride into town. Here’s where to park, and where to drink.
Day 1: Café Roma, St Peter’s Street
I parked on Civic Close, free motorcycle bays with room for about four bikes at a squeeze, and about as central as St Albans gets, the Alban Arena and council offices both in sight. Three minutes on foot and I was at my first stop.
Café Roma is the kind of place where regulars get greeted by first name, orders already half-known before they’ve said a word. Velina, who’s owned it since 2024, told me she’d rather have a proper conversation in person than run the café through a screen, and it shows. This year marks 30 years for Café Roma, and keeping the name was never really in question for her. “The café has been part of St Albans town centre for nearly 30 years and there’s so much goodwill built up over that time,” she told me. She and the previous owner’s family got on well when she bought the business, and keeping the name felt like the right thing to do, out of respect for what they’d built.
That doesn’t mean everything’s stayed the same. The coffee itself was the biggest change: “I really wanted to take it more premium, and I’ll admit I was a little nervous about how the regulars would react, but it’s gone down really well.” I ordered a black Americano, simple, and it backed up every word of that. Food’s new too, something the café never did before, not an extensive menu, but enough for breakfast or lunch alongside your coffee and cake. Their tagline is “More than coffee, it’s a feeling that fits your day,” and I’d agree. I left feeling like a customer, not a number, a real contrast to the production-line, laptop-heavy chain just a few doors down.
If you’re going, take Velina’s own recommendation and try the cortado: true to the café’s Italian roots, less milk, more coffee, and her personal go-to.
I’d arrived not long after opening, 6:30am on weekdays if you want to catch it early before a ride, and by the time I left, just before 9, the outdoor seating was full. Regulars greeting regulars, conversations running easily across tables. It’s not just old faces either, Velina told me a few who’d drifted away over the years have come back, alongside plenty of new ones, exactly the community-first approach the café talks about on its own website, playing out in real time.
Day 2: Charlie’s, London Road
Parking here is free if you’re only stopping for 30 minutes. I parked up right outside and logged my details into the PayByPhone app, quoting location 811513. Fitting, really, for a place built around showing up, ordering, having a chat, and moving on. It opens early too, 7:30am on weekdays and 8:30am on Saturdays, handy if you’re setting off before the day’s properly started.
I ordered an Americano and an oat-milk latte, both made with Charlie’s exclusive house blend, Ozone. Sat out on the patio, room for around a dozen, I got talking to a couple and their dog who’d been coming since the very beginning, back when Charlie’s was just a Piaggio van outside St Albans station. We swapped notes on other favourites in town, but it was clear this was theirs.
Meanwhile, customers kept coming and going. Each one stepped into the small shop to order, then struck up their own conversation with the barista while they waited. When she had a free moment, I asked about the branding, the cup designs, the look of the place. Turns out it was all made by a customer. A shop shaped by the people who drink there, full of character because of it.
On the way home I took a short detour past the station. The van’s still there, still running, a queue of customers chatting and getting their order in before catching the train.
Day 3: Brad & Dills, London Road
I parked in the London Road car park across the street, free for motorcycles like every council car park in St Albans. A little walkway cuts straight through to London Road, a minute on foot at most. It brought back memories of parking here for very different reasons, back when this was the way into Blockbuster. That’s a Co-op now, which is nowhere near as much fun.
You’d be forgiven for still thinking this is a dry cleaner’s. The retro “one-hour dry cleaners” signage is still proudly on show, outside, inside, even in the garden, and it’s not just leftover decor. Brad & Dills took over what was Swift Dry Cleaners and deliberately kept the old fittings rather than ripping them out, part of the charm rather than an oversight. I actually used to bring my dry cleaning here years ago, and can vouch it was quick. That’s all history now. What’s here today is a genuine local favourite, popular with the trendy end of St Albans, dog walkers, gym-goers, and professionals alike.
Like Charlie’s, Brad & Dills started from a van, parked outside a pub during lockdown, serving coffee and bagels. They’ve since grown into shops in Harpenden, Hertford, and, most recently, London, with The Hill near Hampstead.
I ordered a Vegano Picante bagel (hash brown, vegan nduja, vegan mozzarella, crispy onions), swapping the mozzarella for cheddar. Messy, but filling. The barista told me every drink gets a double shot of their house blend, Bad Coffee, roasted in Cardiff from Brazilian beans, chocolate and nut in profile, and it went down a treat.
The walls are hung with original art for sale, most of it, I was told, sourced from the framing shop across the road. There’s a beer fridge too, including an alcohol-free option, an Arosa AF Helles Lager. Nice touch.
Like every stop so far this week, this is a solid one to catch before a ride: fuel up fully, or grab a bagel to go and eat it further up the road. They’re open every day, from 8am.
Day 4: Courtroom Café, St Peter’s Street
I parked on Russell Avenue, which has dedicated motorcycle parking, room for around ten bikes. It’s my go-to for city centre parking, and it’s never let me down. A short cut through Waddington Road and you’re on St Peter’s Street, with St Albans Museum + Gallery impossible to miss.
I wanted to include this one for a couple of reasons. First and most importantly, the coffee’s good. They use Café Roma Royale beans, a blend, and it does the job. I ordered a black Americano alongside smashed avocado on sourdough, straightforward and well made. But the real reason to come here is the atmosphere, and the history behind it.
I spoke to a Visitor Services Assistant, who gave me a few notes. The building dates to 1829–1831, designed by local architect George Smith in a grand Neoclassical style, Doric columns and all. For well over a century it served as St Albans’ Town Hall and Assize Court, the heart of local law and order, until a new civic centre was built in 1966 and the old building was left largely redundant, slowly deteriorating for decades.
It took until 2012 for plans to finally take shape, and 2018 for the doors to reopen as the museum and café it is today. The octagonal courtroom has been fully restored rather than stripped back: the dock is still there, and the old cells below lead directly up into it, exactly as they did when this was a working court.
So you’re not just having a coffee here. You’re having it in the actual dock, or a few feet from it, in a room that heard real cases for well over a hundred years before anyone thought to put a coffee machine near it.
There’s outdoor seating too, right in front of the building, always something to watch while you sit. Open daily, 10am to 4pm.
Day 5: Reading Rooms, 1 Holywell Hill
I was hoping to find the elusive dedicated motorcycle bay that’s meant to be on Britton Avenue, according to the council’s own list, but all that was left of it looked to have been swallowed back into a regular car parking space. Not worth the risk, so I went back to trusty Russell Avenue instead and slotted in next to a Royal Enfield Meteor.
Five minutes later I’d arrived at the Reading Rooms, upstairs at Books on the Hill, an independent bookshop that opened in 2019. It’s two glorious rooms, full of books, comfortable seating, a little coffee station tucked at the back. The building itself dates back to the 1600s, has had various uses since, and purportedly comes with a resident ghost. It’s a laptop-free space too: a small sign on the door reads, “this incredible room is to be used for quiet reading and as a space to unplug and relax.”
I ordered an Americano and a Cake or Death vegan brownie, and soaked up the atmosphere while reading a bit of The Merchant of Venice. No music piped in from overhead speakers, nothing like that. Just a quiet, caffeinated space.
I got chatting to owner Clare Barrow, a fellow motorcyclist, who remarked on how quiet it is back here, even sitting right next to a busy road. The café’s only recently reopened, she told me, and while she’d love to run it seven days a week eventually, for now it’s weekends only: 10am Saturday, 11am Sunday.
Taking a stroll downstairs, I ran into manager Joe Morris and asked him about the coffee brewed upstairs. Like the bookshop itself, he said, Steampunk Coffee Roasters is proudly independent, and it’s exactly the kind of thing that helps draw customers upstairs to admire the antiquarian books in the first place. A loyal customer base has built up over the years.
Five days, five completely different reasons to stop, and not once did parking get in the way of any of it. That’s no accident. Between the dedicated bays on Russell Avenue and Civic Close, the free council car parks dotted around town, and a few honest conversations with the people who actually run these places, St Albans has quietly made itself one of the easier cities in the country to ride into for a proper coffee. Spoiled for choice barely covers it. Long may that continue.
