Kapow Coffee

one of those places that stops a conversation mid-sentence, thornton's arcade has been doing that to people for over a century, and kapow fits right into that rhythm. the arcade itself, a victorian shopping gallery built in 1878, is genuinely one of the more interesting streets you can walk through in leeds city centre, and it gives kapow a context that a lot of coffee shops would kill for. but the coffee holds its own independent of the postcode. the regulars here aren't casual about it, the kind of crowd that comes back not out of habit but out of preference, which is a different thing entirely. if you're moving through the city centre and you want something that actually satisfies, thornton's arcade, ls1 6lq, is where to head first.