This coffee house has been a regular quaffing hole for mine for a number of years and I have seen it change considerably over that time. Anyhow I thought it was about time I reviewed it for the blog.
As always its the coffee (a double shot cappuccino), the venue and the service I look at. Everything is graded out of five, there's a scale on the first post.
The Coffee: Score 4
This place should be serving the best coffee in town seeing as they import and roast their own beans. With an award winning chief roaster in the form of long serving staff member Paul there really is no excuse for serving up anything but the best coffee. However despite having a dab hand at the roaster and an absolutely sublime house blend, in recent times this has not translated well into the cup. The barista's let the side down by mostly not knowing the difference between a cappuccino and a latte, if I wanted a cupful of milky mess I'd walk up the road to Starbucks.
If you're having coffee here these days its best to make it an espresso or an americano or better still get them to bag up some beans and take them home.
There is a good range of coffee's available and in truth the coffee menu is as good as you'll see anywhere in town. The food menu is limited but they are good at what they do, salads to die for and tasty toasties. The assortment of cakes and tray bakes are reasonable although I'd give the brownies a miss unless your idea of a brownie is that of a dried out husk tasting of nothing but flour. The hot chocolate is heaven in a cup and well worth a visit for that alone. They serve a disappointingly bland range of teas.
The Venue: Score 5
Coffee houses don't get much better than this. It's big and roomy with about 70 covers. The place attracts a mix of people and is definitely the place to be seen on the street. The décor is classic coffee house, muted natural colours, high ceilings and an open frontage out onto one of the most interesting streets in the city. The furniture is a sturdy wooden affair with sofas at front and somewhat uncomfortable aluminium chairs outside. There is a regular change of the artists work that is on display; everything from the bizarre to the next big thing. On the downside the background music is not background enough and is often in danger of disappearing up itself. There is no WiFi and no intention of introducing it either, they don't want the laptop crowd; move along bloggers!! They run regular and very well attended performance evenings that attract a hip and happening arty set.
The service: Score 3
This place is popular and attracts the crowds, today there are 15 people in the queue so if a quick cup of joe is what you're looking for then you may have to keep walking. The staff are young, hip and trendy, mostly pleasant but never friendly. They'd score higher if they could make a decent cappuccino, in a decent time-scale. Considering that it takes 17-20 seconds to steam a decent cappuccino it astounds me that it can take up to 5 minutes to get your hands on a cup once you've ordered it. That aside they do everything else well, if slowly, and the place is so well established that they could employ monkeys and still draw a crowd.
overall score: 12 out of 15
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