Hyde ParkBook Club

Jack Simpson took over a former petrol station on Headingley Lane in 2015 — it had spent the intervening years as a fancy-dress shop, as Leeds buildings do — and made it the city's creative living room: café by day, venue by night, books throughout, with early gigs by English Teacher and Yard Act on the honours board and a sister art gallery, HPAC, founded in 2020. The tenth birthday arrived in October 2025 with the local press taking stock of how much of the city's music had passed through one forecourt. The Guardian credited it with capturing the creative energy of Leeds; the kitchen credits the halloumi. Open nine to midnight, later at weekends — student hours, honestly kept.