Sunday, January 10, 2010

Flat white

So yesterday we were out in the freezing weather with a single purpose in mind. (Actually that is not entirely true, since Sushi Hiro occupied half our mind space for the first 2 hours of our outing, but then again, sushi is no coffee and so will not go into that story here). Anyways after our sushi craving was put to rest, we decided to start with our visits to London Cafes in search of the right coffee, right environment...or our 'market research' you could say. After walking for a few minutes in the snow, we finally found the first one on our list, 'Flat White', a cafe in Soho.

Facts:
  • Flat white is run by a NZ guy, or someone from 'down under' as they say it. 
  • They sell coffee, cakes, muffins, salads, sandwiches and such other snack
  • Located on Berwick St, Soho, London
  • Relatively small cafe


Observations:
  • Get their coffee beans from Square Mile coffee roasters
  • Extremely busy, even though not all other cafes in the area were full
  • Not a place to sit and relax, or think
  • Great tasting coffee and hot chocolate
  • Served in glasses or cups, no real rule which one for what
  • Decor and furniture - basic
  • Promote art mainly from Australian and NZ artists
  • Service was not the greatest, in fact I  even suspect the guys sitting next to us was served our order, who didn't even pay for it and just quietly left once they had finished. Ofcourse we eventually got what we ordered, but the waitress was a bit confused.


Inferences:
  • Central London cafes are small busy places and may be difficult to open a slightly bigger space with a workshop.
  • If the coffee tastes good, people do not even care much about the environment (we still need to see if the vice versa is true)




-Sell Coffee, not your soul

1 comment:

  1. I wouldn't go to a place, frankly, if it doesn't allow for long discussions over coffee! Coffee is not for a hurried sip-and-run lifestyle! It needs to be savoured, talked about, smelled at to absorb the aroma!!! :-)

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