Floating Coffee Co

Breakfast Review:
I was recommended this place as a great breakfast venue.
It is quirky, you get to eat a breakfast below the waterline on a canal boat in the heart of the city — which as an ex sailor, I find really cool.
I stepped aboard and was met by two ladies who being polite were obviously not happy that they were at work on a Saturday morning.
I ordered my Full English breakfast. It wasn’t impressive. Sure, I got the bacon, 2 sausages, fried egg, toast and tomato, but all the ingredients were seriously cheap. All had the feel of ‘kept warm for ages’, too.
To make matters worse, the single fried egg was hard. Its a shame, I was hoping it would be great, however the fact that there was only 1 other customer there at the time, tells me that others perhaps know this?
The place didn’t look very clean either, (although there were just 2 customers, there were 2 tables that still hadn’t been cleared)?

The saying goes ‘the best things come in small packages’…well the Floating Coffee Co certainly proves this theory.
If you’ve ever taken a walk beside the canals in Birmingham city centre then the chances are you have seen this little gem, but have you been in? If not, why not? This beautiful little barge pipes out rich, nostril-​quivering smells across the city and invites you to come and see whether the flavours are just as good.
If you have the time to take a seat ‘onboard’ order yourself the full English breakfast — all your favourites cooked to perfection, topped off with a mug of tea or coffee. Alternatively pop in for a cream cake or a Danish pastry — I can recommend it all (I’m not that greedy, I’ve eaten them all on separate occasions).
My advice would be to get here earlier rather than later to avoid disappointment. There is limited seating inside, so if you catch it at a busy time you may have to wait onshore. This isn’t a bad thing during the summer as the views are great along the canal but during the winter months you are going to get cold unless you have some mittens and a scarf.

There aren’t many boats around that you can actually go and sit on whilst enjoying a cup of coffee and a bite to eat, especially in Birmingham city centre!
When I have friends down for the weekend, I sometimes take them here as it makes the day more memorable than going to a standard greasy spoon café.
It’s not a 5* restaurant so don’t expect too much but I think just having a coffee and being able to tell people you did it on a boat is a priceless experience in itself and highly recommended.

You can be hard pushed to find a good greasy spoon in the centre of Brum, which was how I ended up here. This place is worth a visit just for the novelty factor of having breakfast on a barge. Don’t worry you won’t be travelling anywhere. It is super small and cosy but it is fun. The food isn’t amazing but it gives you standard British fair for a decent price and whilst on a boat!
Eating can be a fun task when there are four of you at the table. Minding those elbows as you cut your food can result in nudges to the side but what can you expect from eating on a barge. The most important thing to remember is to watch your head on the way in and out!

Found this many years ago — and re-​visited yesterday (08÷07÷09) — still a great setting for a cappuchino & danish.
The breakfasts are great as well.
Good fix for those of us who love boating but can’t afford to do it all the time!

Have tried this out a couple of times, and been pleasantly surprised. I had a cream tea the first time — really good. Only trouble is that there isn’t too much room to move about, but that’s what you would expect. Different and enjoyable.

It was the novelty factor that first led me to visit the Floating Coffee Company, as it’s basically a café inside a narrow boat which is moored on the canal in Birmingham City Centre.
I soon discovered however that not only is it a brilliant quirky idea, but the food and drinks served ‘on board’ are excellently cooked and delicious. Not as expensive as I’d thought they would be either!
The tables and benches are laid out on either side of the barge with a central aisle for the waitresses and customers to get up and down the café.
I have personally only ever eaten the Full English Breakfast from the Floating Coffee Company and it’s absolutely delicious and well worth the £6 you can expect to pay for it. The plate was packed with breakfast foods, all of which were cooked beautifully and even the bacon was well done but without being burned to a cinder! I loathe and detest tomatoes so asked for my breakfast to arrive without these horrible vegetables (or are they a fruit?) and was pleasantly surprised to be offered extra of an alternative food instead of these slimy little beasts.
My daughter has eaten a baguette from the Floating Coffee Company too and she loved every single bite of it, if I recall correctly she had ham salad and it was served with tangy coleslaw and everything.
You can of course choose from a selection of drinks to wash your meal down with. Of course I had a coffee which was fresh, aromatic and delicious while my daughter had a boring glass of Coke which was served in a lovely trendy glass!
The interior of the Floating Coffee Company is gorgeous and bright, not dissimilar to the interior of the kitchen and dining area of a house-​barge. Very quaint looking with lots of bright colours and pastels all mixed together to give a relaxing but unusual atmosphere in which to eat your meal.
Be warned though, because this is a boat there are restrictions on how many people can be seated on the barge at any one time. This means you might have to wait if you are wanting to eat at a particularly busy time, this is not a problem in the summer as you can sit at a nearby bench and soak up the sun — but in the Winter in means a chilly time standing around next to the canal waiting to be seated.
There should be a fleet of them!