Perk: The Coffee Shop That Turned Into a Friendship

Margaritas, if you're wondering. Kirsty, our daughter Hannah and I had gone in for a cocktail, and Perk's only got the one big table — everything else is a couple of bar stools along the window and the far wall — so we ended up sharing it with Alan and Maria Johnstone. It turned out Nicole Mclennan, who owns Perk, is Maria's niece, though that's not what got the conversation started. It was simpler than that: Alan, it turned out, is also called Alan. We got chatting, found out the Johnstones were already on the margaritas, and decided a round of our own wouldn't hurt. It ended up being more than one round. That was the spring of 2025, and it didn't take long to become a habit — most weekends now, a Saturday or Sunday decided on the day, out to see somewhere new, lunch along the way, home again by evening. In a little over a year, the Johnstones have shown us more corners of the Highlands than I could list in one piece.

That's the kind of place Perk turns out to be, though — small enough that conversations spill between tables, good enough that you stay for a second round. By day it's a coffee shop with a serious local following and a doughnut counter that empties out well before closing time. A few nights a week, after dark, it becomes a cocktail bar. I'd tell you to go for the coffee. I'd also tell you not to be surprised if you leave having made a friend.

Doughnuts That Don't Last the Afternoon

Nicole Mclennan opened Perk in October 2018, and by her own account she got there the hard way — teaching herself doughnut-making from nothing, one failed batch after another, until it worked. The dough gets fermented for more than 24 hours before it's hand-rolled fresh each morning, and the flavours change monthly, so nothing on that counter sits still for long. There's usually a vegan option or two, worth knowing if you're travelling with someone who can't eat the standard version. The trade-off is availability: reviewers and locals both say the same thing — the good stuff can be gone well before the café closes at 3pm, so if a doughnut's the reason you're going, go in the morning, not after lunch.

"There were hundreds and hundreds of bad ones before I made a good one."

— Nicole Mclennan, The Press & Journal

The Coffee's Not Roasted Here — And That's Fine

It's a fair question, and one I've heard asked at the counter: does Perk roast its own beans? No — it uses Dear Green, a specialty roaster based in Glasgow, for the daytime coffee and, come evening, for the espresso martinis too. You can buy the beans by the bag if you want to take the taste home with you. What Perk actually controls is everything downstream of the beans — the grind, the shots, the training behind the counter — and it shows in the numbers. Perk holds a 4.8 out of 5 across more than a hundred Tripadvisor reviews and carries a Travellers' Choice badge, which in a city with no shortage of decent coffee is not nothing.

Perk by Night, and the Table Next to Ours

A few evenings a week — Thursdays and Sundays until 8pm, Fridays and Saturdays until half past eleven — Perk switches from café to cocktail bar. It bills itself as an espresso martini bar, and the martinis are made with the same Dear Green coffee that goes into the daytime cups, which strikes me as decent joined-up thinking rather than a gimmick. It's also where that one big table comes in — Perk's small enough that it's the only table of any size in the place, so when it's busy, strangers end up sharing it whether they planned to or not. That's how we ended up next to the Johnstones: we'd sat down for a cocktail of our own, they were already a few margaritas in, and somewhere between finding out Alan and I shared a name and finding out we both liked the look of their drinks, we ordered a round to match. There's no booking system for the evening side; you just turn up and see who's there. That night, we got lucky.

Small Room, Big Following

Perk is not a big space, and it doesn't try to be. Reviewers say the same thing over and over — great coffee, great doughnuts, not always enough seats to enjoy either. It's dog-friendly, there's free wifi, and the staff get consistent praise for being quick without ever feeling rushed. The doughnuts run close to £4.50 each, which a handful of reviewers call steep — I don't think it is, given the 24-hour dough and the monthly reinvention, but you should know the price before you order six. In November 2024, the Inverness City Centre Business Awards named Perk Café of the Year — decided by public vote rather than a judging panel, with more than five thousand locals casting over fifty thousand votes across every category that year. It picked up the Connoisseurs Choice "Sweet Treats" award again in 2025. That's not just visitors talking.

A Church Street Address, and a Second Site Coming

Church Street sits in the middle of Inverness's Old Town, with the Victorian Market's entrance a few doors along and the River Ness a short walk beyond that — easy to fold into a morning spent wandering the castle, the cathedral, and the market stalls. Perk's success has outgrown the one shop: Mclennan is opening a second site, Perk Pantry, on Tomatin Road, set up as a combined bakery, kitchen and café — which should mean more of what's currently made off-site gets made in-house instead. For now, though, Church Street is still the original, and still the one worth the walk into town for.

We didn't go to Perk that night looking for anything beyond a coffee and a cocktail. We left with the Johnstones' number, and it's turned into a proper weekend habit since — a day decided that morning, somewhere new to see, lunch on the way, home by evening. I still order a margarita most times I'm in. Some habits are worth keeping.