Rhode Island is a small chain of coffee shops based in the Greater Manchester / Lancashire region. Rhode Island have 8 stores now and this is the third I have visited as I recall, and is definitely up there alongside Oldham as one of my favorite branches alongside my local branch in Oldham.
This branch is pretty much a typical Rhode Island Coffee, despite being only a small independent chain, it is quite nice in a good central location in Blackburn, opposite Mcdonald's.
This branch has a decent selection of food and drink, I decided to order a Gluten Free Ham and Cheese Toastie however I was sadly told they had run out of bread, but the member of staff kindly offered to go out and buy some new bread, which they managed to do quite quickly.
I also got chatting to the staff behind the "bar", they seemed quite friendly, we talked about my local branch of Oldham and my hometown of Middleton, and how he used to work here.
My coffee was okay, it was a little overpriced for an independent but around the same place as Starbucks for a slightly lower quality. The cream tasted poor quality and not as sweet which was a shame, perhaps a Gingerbread cream to go with it would have been much better, but apart from that the coffee was quite good quality in general.
My friend also ordered a Hot Chocolate with Caramel, they complained it was too sweet but this was mainly down to them ordering the drink and not getting what they expected, when I tasted it, it tasted fine and the caramel went nice with it.
It was a shame to have to pay an extra 45p for syrup and then for cream, especially as this is normally free for Gold level members like myself at Starbucks.
Overall, this is a nice coffee shop and one of the best options in Blackburn centre with no branches of Starbucks here or many alternatives, but due to some minor flaws due to the food and drink being nothing more than okay, I feel it just deserves a solid three stars, most things remain around the average mark, and the service above average. read more