So a couple of people commented that $3.00 is a bit much for a coffee in the city although i’m sticking by that call for Annandale. Quick scout around cafe’s at Ultimo and agree that $2.50 is closer to the mark.
Cafe Columbia: $2.20
Corner Cafe: $2.50
Cafe Fusion: $2.20
Cafe Q: $2.80
Bourke St Bakery: $3.00
Cafe Fusion do four different sizes of coffee add an extra shot as you go up – all the way to a ‘Quad’, four shots in an extra large.
Three bucks seems to be the norm for most reputable places, although break the $3.00 mark we’ll start asking questions. Gallery Cafe in Annandale have just put the price up to $3.20. Just down the road, Hopscotch cafe tried raising their price to to $3.20 only to find it killed their business, it’s back down to $3.00 now. Not to far away at Bar Sirocco you pay $2.50 for an average coffee. Round the corner Vicini do a bonza coffee for the right price – $3.oo.
The best value (price & quality) cup of coffee is served up by a Bulgarian, Australian operator at the Cockle Bay Kiosk on the City side of the Pyrmont Bridge walkway. He’ll do you up a hit for $2.20 (takeaway only). Some of his more close-fisted clients will still share a long black.
The best value (price & quality) cup of coffee is served up by a Bulgarian, Australian operator at the Cockle Bay Kiosk on the City side of the Pyrmont Bridge walkway. He’ll do you up a hit for $2.20 (takeaway only). Some of his more close-fisted clients will still share a long black.
I used to work uptown, now I’m downtown. On the way out of a meeting my colleagues suggested we detour for Single Origin. Glorious words. People tuned in to coffee frequency in Sydney often mention this place oh and they’ve got a sweet website.
The best uptown coffee is at Mecca. The best downtown coffee is at Single Origin.
Mecca’s food is not remarkable, their coffee is kick arse.
Single Origin’s coffee is a deliciously dark & earthy bubbling crema mud pit. Their food is amazing.
A snapshot of their menu please:
Yes that does say “four cheese toasty”. Is that original?? It’s bloody awesome. Oh, what up with the toasted nutella, roast almonds & banana sandwich? Not something I’d normally sort myself out with but they haven’t put a foot wrong yet so…
The ABS published a report in 2003/2004, titled: 8655.0 – Cafes and Restaurants, Australia, 2003-04
Oldish news but the latest I’ve found so far. From the report:
At the end of June 2004 there were a total of 15,083 businesses operating in cafe and restaurant services in Australia.
“At the end of June 2004, 51.8% (7,820) of businesses in cafe and restaurant services had access to the Internet, while 20.7% (3,126) had a web presence.”
Yah right! How many of these businesses declare all income?!?! [sic]
That is interesting that Catering businesses are pulling 30 % of the income but accounting for only 11% of the businesses, does this make Catering more lucrative?
The break down of turnover for cafes and restaurants is shown below:
At the end of June 2004, there were 188,102 persons working in cafe and restaurant services. Cafe and restaurant businesses accounted for 76.1% (143,171 persons) of total employment and catering businesses 23.9% (44,932 persons).
Caterers pull a third of the income from a quarter of the employees
I thought Melbourne had more cafes/ restaurants per capita than Sydney?? At least according to the graph below, Victoria seems to have less than NSW. Sydney NSW have 10% more people with 15% more cafe/restaurants…
Mornings when you get to work and don’t have time to pick up your coffee on the way. At your computer, fired up your browser, checked email. You could duck out to get a coffee but its around 9am, your favourite cafe will be clogged with punters. It would be at least 9:30 by the time you’ve slinked back in, coffee & fruit toast in hand…
If you could place that order from your desk, the cafe could either run it up to you or you could shave that queue waiting time off the coffee run.
The buts :
Would it give some cafes a competitive edge over others? Are there potential gains in revenue enough to pay for the system? It does have possibilities for expansion into office catering…
Crossing Wynyard park on the search for another cafe we came across this…
A cafe for a day, without walking inside i was trying to work out what it was for which company? There was no branding on the outside… What were they hiding? Eventually ‘Nescafe’ I found in small print on one of the outside panels.
Ultra cafe styling on the outside brought on anticipation for Nescafe to come up with some new espresso bean blend. That didn’t happen. They were pimping a ‘new’ range of instant coffee, Nescafe baristas stood at a hotwater tap, ripped the end off piles of instant coffee sachets and whipped up the instant of your choice. I forced myself through halfway of my ‘strong cappuccino’ and chucked it.
“This industry is booming” poured out of all the alleyways in The Rocks for the 2007 Aroma Festival. Even though a variety of complimentary products were also on display (chocolate, tea, incense) coffee was the ruler.
Toby’s Estate attracted the longest queues, punters waited up to 20 minutes for the $1 festival brew. Our Toby’s soy picolos brought on the second biggest ‘mmm yum’ grin of approval. However when Republica’s organic Timor blend hit thy lips ‘mmm yum’ became ‘oooh yeah…’ the only sip of the day that struck our taste buds with something different; a full, rich and deliciously earthy flavour.
The overseas passenger terminal became a home espresso paradise for the masses, dozens of glamorous touch-button machines with equally slick sales people, some priced at several thousand dollars. If the number of espresso machine tyre-kickers is any measure of the health of the economy, these may well be boom times. They say Ferrari sales are up.
Is there another cheap gst free staple that punters are willing fork out thousands of dollars for? German espresso machine manufacturer Krups’ (caution: website features excessive zooming on kitchen engineering devices!) slogan sums it up nicely ‘Beyond Reason’…
Interesting banter followed Georges Sabados’ rant on Coffee Geek. Alan Frew from coffeeco posted “More DOMESTIC espresso machines are sold and owned per capita in Australia than in any other country in the world ”
Apparently all those people with cardigans, ironed jeans and neat hair, along with their zooming Krups “get hands on training, gratis, on how to use their machine and how to understand the process that goes into making espresso. ” (CoffeeKid)
Apparently Ruben from Mecca got second in the latte art competition… Who was first?
I realised today that the ‘Sacred Ground’ cafe on Kent Street is actually called Pulse Cafe, those barriers covered in the roaster’s branding threw me. A person that recommended the cafe to me thought the same at first.
An article at Coffee Geek by George Sabados
compares Aussie NZ coffee culture to the American’s:
“The ratio of espresso machines to population in Australia and New Zealand is approximately 850 people to 1 machine, only bested by Italy. In comparison, in the US, there are roughly 20,000 people per espresso machine. With such a limited number of customers per machine to draw on, cafés in Australia and New Zealand must use quality as the biggest drawcard.”
Still too low, who wants to wait behind 849 people for a coffee!?
George goes further to say the US espresso standards are 15 years behind and that the Australian NZ market is more discerning his proof is in the popularity of US franchises in the industry contrasted with a high proportion of Australian boutique sellers and roasters.
Kent St is Sydney’s CBD coffee street.
Loads of cafe’s in one strip between Market st and Erskine st and although I could probably find a bad one if i tried, it hasn’t happened yet.
Today’s post lunch long black was from Sacred Grounds, an organic Fair Trade blend roasted by Voodoo Coffee, although Sacred Grounds say its much better than their regular bean. Their expert preparation must have helped. These people are soon to open another one in Pyrmont, business on Kent St must be good!
