My parents both work on Clarence St in the city which comfortably explains my introduction to this café (the café is situated a street down on Kent St). The more uncomfortable (only because it has the potential to be diverging in places and long) explanation is this: I was visiting them not long ago, it was in the morning, and I wanted coffee and I wanted to try something new. I normally go to the left (on King St there's a delightful café called The Good Life and they make great and cheap coffee) or to the right of where they are across the other side of the street but on this day I was ready to explore (with limited time) so instead of left or right I went south. Walked down Kent, past Nando's, past a couple of so-so looking cafes and stumbled here. "Here" is almost even not there because this café is small. A hole in the wall (although it would have to have been a big fist) but a nice one. There are seats and but no individual tables (unless you take the long one for yourself which is really easy to do because nearly everyone here gets their coffee to go) and there are always newspapers on the table. The point here, though, is the coffee. It was truly outstanding. It was all the buzz words coffee connoisseurs use when they're trying to sell coffee. Organic. Full-bodied. Rich. Dark. Roasted. All of it. It was so good I bought two to go and gave one of each to each parent.
The next time I came back (I don't tend to traverse the dark and slippery waters of the city too often because parking is hell) was with my partner and this time it looked as though management had changed. In fact it looked as though the cafe may now be a family business. No problems there, I love families. But the so-called' healthy' burger I ordered kind of ruined that open-eyed-wonder I had from my initial visit because the burger in no way compared to my first coffee there. It was ok. It was chicken and avocado and tomato and onion on a brown roll. Sounds delicious but really wasn't. It was just pretty ok. The coffee this time around was definitely better than the burger - in fact it was really good if I was to judge it on its own worth - but it wasn't like that first time. I love the quaint space though and next time I come it will be just for the coffee. read more