The Vancouver Indy Coffee Scene

The Globe and Mail one of my favorite newspapers has a really decent article on micro-chain café expansion. They talk with Willie Mounzer, co-owner of Caffé Artigiano, Vince Piccolo of 49th Parallel and John Neate of JJ Bean and some guy from Starbucks PR. It is a really in-depth and decent article and sums up the current café scene quite nicely.

This winter I was able to have a long chat with Wille Mounzer at the Canadian Coffee and Tea Show . He expressed that growth is natural for a chain and finding the right people for the job is important.  He explained that taking short cuts behind the bar leads to less quality product, to which I agree. The varying quality I have seen from chains leads me to believe that even the mighty Artigiano can’t keep the quality consistent and still expand. I’d agree with Owner John Neate of JJ Bean, who I have found more consistent in his cafes across the board.

“For us to go to Toronto, we’d have to compromise what we do. You can only have so many stores, I don’t know how many, but I think after 20 it’s hard to remember all the managers names and their families. We’re pretty close to our maximum size around 10.” Said JJ Bean Owner John Neate ~ As published in the Globe and Mail Wednesday, Feb. 03, 2010.

That comment pretty much sums it up in my mind but don’t take my word for it.  Head down to your favorite café, grab a copy of the paper and decide for yourself.

The Globe and Mail Newspaper

Well our little yelp got a lot of traffic and while we don’t like to cause controversy we just found the entire experience a little odd. I feel we can describe this issue using the selling of coffee beans as an example.

Summer of 2007 I went to Victoria and checked out the Murchie’s Government Street cafe. I asked where the roast was from and they said:

“She (the owner) doesn’t like to tell people. There is too much competition, but it is a blend of beans from South America.”

And this flies in the face of what most artisan roasters are doing these days. Roasters like Victrola, 49th Parallel and Intelligentsia all mention the region, farm and altitude in which the coffee is picked and how it is roasted. It isn’t a secret they actually really want you to know because for them it is about the quality. To my understanding this is the basis for direct trade and the basis for complete transparency in the direct trade model.

Don't let your transparency slide photo credit: durak.org

If you see a bag of coffee in the grocery store that says direct trade and there is no other information on it, no website info, farm, co-op or location, well the bag of coffee could have come from anywhere and has about as much accountability as your two-year-old does while getting driven home from preschool (or none).

I believe all of these community review sites and user-generated content site is all about transparency. Another example would be Digg. I love Digg, especially its labs. But I would never consider uncredited links from Digg more accurate over places like the Globe and Mail or the New York Times. A lot of links on Digg just don’t have the ethical transparency that either news organization has.

We love to spoon

This is why we have put our support behind the Urban Spoon model (my name is Coffee Rob on Urban Spoon btw) of ranking and reviewing cafes and coffee shops. With its spoon backs as they call it and adding reviews from inside along with outside sources will give readers, in my opinion, a more informed review from a variety of sources.

The UrbanSpoon Back

Yelp banned me for linking back to my blog, and I included those links to provide some credit where credit was due.

So in this era of everyone having an opinion or a review, lets try to have some transparency and accountability and if you’re really serious about reviewing and writing about a subject. I’d suggest you set up your own blog. You will own every piece of content on the site. . . .

Anonymity is important

A reason why I have a coffee cup over my face is I really like the anonymity of a review. Much like a food reviewer I don’t tell cafes when or where I show up. I pay for all of my drinks and only after I have spent two or three visits to a cafe before I actually write about it. It is really important for me to experience the cafe how the average consumer would enjoy it. This is also why I always try to bring along a guest with me the first time. And if you want to find a picture of me well it is as easy as a google keyword search.

Corrispondence

Crystal H did respond back in the late afternoon and I thank her for her response, but yet  the email address she left for people to write regarding any questions or concerns bounces back (as of Wed. May, 7 evening). Again I have found all of this odd. And it isn’t hard to provide feedback to Yelp, but leaving people an email address that bounces back doesn’t give me any sense of comfort in accountability of previous actions.

Can’t say I’m not happy about the publicity the blog has received, but truthfully I just want to get back to writing about coffee.

Yelp is Evil - Credit: East Bay Express

I joined Yelp weeks ago just to see what it was all about. I hadn’t really done anything with it until I was contacted by Crystal H. last week, who looks like a normal user but is actually staff for Yelp and has the title of new community manager for Yelp Vancouver.

She asked where all the great coffee places in Vancouver was and was dieing to know. So I told her about the coffee blog and how it wasn’t a money-making venture, but it was a site I was working on.

She checked out the blog, loved it and then told me she got a lot more traffic from Yelp then she ever did from Twitter.

I thought great, I will share my content with Yelp and get some reciprocal links to improve my authority on Yelp as a strong and competent reviewer and everyone will be happy.

I had heard some news about Yelp’s odd review removal policy back in February, but after reading the FAQ’s I though it might had seen the light.

In the two days I was actually posting by Yelp I added four new locations and out of the 16 places I had reviewed I also already had three Useful and one Cool rating on my reviews. Instant feedback that I was doing something right. I had added about 300 words to each review, photos, and star rating and then at the bottom a link to this blog.

I was told by Crystal H. that Yelp doesn’t really like posted links ( yet still allows users to submit them). I was also told I should really yelp about more then just coffee, (which is complete reversal to what she originally asked for) I was also told I should really put some Yelp Bling on my site to show where I have been on and what I have reviewed on Yelp.

Within 48 hours of being asked to submit my two years of cafe review knowledge I was banned from the site in an email from Sydney at Yelp HQ.

Hello,

I’m writing to let you know about our decision to close your account. Your user account was flagged by the Yelp community, and our support team has determined that your account has violated Yelp’s Terms of Service (http://www.yelp.ca/static?p=tos), specifically for using your account for commercial or promotional purposes.

While we don’t provide additional details about account closures, please know that we review every situation with great attention and take this matter very seriously.

Regards,
Sydney
Yelp User Support

I wasn’t given a warning, probation told to take down what they considered offending content, I was just not wanted around anymore and deleted from the system.

While I haven’t lost any sleep over this blogger Vancouver Eats agree that is just absolute BS. I will wear it with a badge of honour. It is the first social network I have ever been banned from, and yes, my parents are very proud…

But I am left with food for thought:
• Crystal H never gives a bad review about anything, thinks everything is great.
• Yelp wants you to put all its badges on my site and yet absolutely nothing in return.
• I saw very little transparency in the authority of reviews on Yelp, there could be hundreds of shills.

Will I ever return to Yelp if asked back? Nope… it was about as fair and balanced as Fox News during the Bush Administration.

But in my next post I will talk about how to do this properly and how to do it right, and why we’re adding Urban Spoon to our sites social network.

Yes nothing has changed

To you coffee aficionados, this is one post you might want to skip. To those of you who see a savvy marketing campaign, and curiosity that can’t be killed along with free stuff, well, read on but don’t say I didn’t warn you. . .

When I heard that McDonalds had come up with a new roast for its coffee and was giving it away for free during the breakfast hours, well, I didn’t rush to the golden arches to get mine. But, one morning I did fine myself near one of the restaurants and tried this so-called new roast.

When it arrived the coffee was in more of an incredibly small plastic cup and extremely hot. It did have a funky lid that was probably invented to help prevent third-degree burns from super-hot coffee.

Once cool enough to sip, it was a murky taste that had no distinguishable flavour and weak in strength. It was not full in body (full in body really doesn’t mean anything). It was actually thin and watery in body and once a little cooler there were hardly any redeeming qualities.

Oh, 100 per cent Arabica Beans actually doesn’t mean as much as it used to. There are so many varieties of Arabica that just because it is of the Arabica doesn’t mean it is any good.

Case in point. . .

Most of you are probably thinking why the hell is this indy coffee blogger writing about McDonalds’ coffee and shouldn’t he know it is crap already?

Well yes, I kind of knew what I should have expected and it was the same crap in a different package. But much like “New Coke” I had to try it just to say it sucks.

Why do I torture myself? Well I do it for you my readers. I find the good, the bad and the ugly.

Just incase you were wondering I have tried the Tim Hortons *new* latte and Starbucks’ new Pike Place Roast.

Not surprisingly the Starbucks new Pike Place Roast was best out of the three and if given the choice I would choose bucks over the other two. But only because the barista might have a bit more of a clue than the other two combined.

Authors Note: Tim Hortons is not advertising its version of a “latte” anymore and you also can’t find any information when you search for latte on the website. It was never a real latte and never used a combination of espresso and freshly steamed milk. It is what I like to call convenience store cappuccino. More on that later. . .

Short story: I sold my car. I live on The Drive. It is one of the best areas in town to live with out a vehicle. When I need one I use a Car Co-op, take the bus or call a cab. And while this has worked quite well it wouldn’t in a lot of areas. As I used to work out of my car, (and have slept in it on one occasion) it was a proof of concept to show I could really live with out it. And I have been able to very easily …

Taxi Cafe seating area

When I take the number 20 into downtown I kept on seeing this cafe on Richard Street, called Taxi Cafe. Like thousands of cafes in Vancouver I didn’t know a thing about it. But as my visits downtown increased, I kept walking past Taxi Cafe and really wanted to check it out.

I had my opportunity to check out the cafe and noticed it was much much more than a cafe. One of the most successful and award-winning advertising agencies in Canada opened up a Vancouver Office and along with Taxi Vancouver came the Taxi Cafe.

Why a cafe instead of a waiting room?
Why a professionally trained barista instead of a receptionist ?
I asked cafe manager Chris Reynolds and barista Yvon about this concept.

Yvon pour an Americano

To paraphrase they wanted to open up the front space of the offices and make it more of a public space; something where they can; one, showcase the work they have done for clients; and two, instead of meeting with a client outside a cafe why not have their own cafe? Also if a client has arrived early for a meeting, why not offer them an espresso or latte? I think this makes perfect sense actually and having the cafe open to the public helps the bottom line a bit and because the agency is all about marketing a brand (Yes those Viagra Commercials are a Taxi creation). So why not show your clients what you can do with a brand and market your own coffee shop in a city that has one of the most competitive coffee environments?

Yes but what about the cafe?

Walking in, you are met with concrete floors, white walls and marble counters. The word Taxi is written on a light wall from across the back wall. But the cafe still has minimalistic aesthetic appeal. There are three screens on the front wall showing the advertisements that taxi has worked on.
The coffee is a dark roasted espresso and is made to a professional standard. I am not a huge fan of the dark roast espresso as it loses some of the subtle flavour you can find in a roast, but overall I was happy with it. Taxi is currently packaging its own coffee and using a roaster based in Toronto called Mountainview.

View of the bar and Richards Street

Yvon was very diligent about keeping her machine clean and well timed. There isn’t a whole lot of traffic from the street that enters into the shop so she isn’t that busy but the beans are fresh and the service is personable and friendly. There isn’t any free wireless for the general public, nor is there any plug-ins.

Is independent a brand?

As far as independents go, I would consider Taxi Cafe one. They are owned and run by a large advertising agency, yet the shop is unique and different and very much has its own flair. Reynolds has plans to open up a second cafe in Toronto that is completely detached from the agency itself. Would I want to see one on every corner? No, but then I don’t like seeing a Blenz, a Waves, a Starbucks and a Tims on the same four corners of every block and in every city. And in saying that I believe Taxi fits the bill as an independent cafe in Vancouver.

Update March 2009: I have been to Taxi Cafe a number of time since this review and although they have changed their roastry to Mountainview, out of Toronto, Yvon still tends shop and I still get a great Americano.

Faces and Places

Where blog was written: Taxi Cafe
Drinks ordered: 12oz. Americano
Discount of own to-go cup: med priced at a small
Barista Skill: solid
Barista’s friendliness: informative and friendly
Website: www.taxi.ca

Starbucks at Pike Place

It is kinda odd to walk all the independent shops of Pike Place Market seeing all the fresh fish, local produce and general buzz of a local market place only to run into one of the largest corporate chains in North America.

Pike Place

The location has three cashiers and two barista’s working a three head machine. No tables or chairs and barely room to move due to the number of people. The drink was a 8oz Dry Cappuccino (no other information was given). It was made  perfectly, sure the expresso was complete crap but the drink was made exactly as a dry cappuccino should be. They also didn’t ask me if dry was like foamy they knew what dry providing these barista were familiar with a wide range of lexicon. For the volume of people on a warm and sunny New Years Eve afternoon it was amazing how well they were working that machine. I had my drink in seven minutes from time of ordering which is decent due to the massive amount of volume served.

While just blocks away. . .

But why can’t this excellent of quality be applied across the board, why just a blocks away from the famed Pike Place Cafe is it the same cookie cutter cafe that makes that same poorly made cappuccino on automatic machines. The automatic machines where brought in to speed up the services and reduce wait times, but at Pike Place I didn’t have an unusually long wait time. The staff handled the rush easily and effectively with teamwork.

Are the employees any less at the other locations, or are they just supplied with more training?

I find an unusual paradox that Starbucks found a good thing at the Pike Place more then 35 years ago and wanted to share this experience with the rest of the world, this I whole hearty agree with. But yet the rest of the worlds Starbucks don’t even remotely resemble the unique nature that is the Pike Place Cafe. Yes their are some really bad independent cafes in Vancouver and yes some chains stores are better then others, but what I really see at every other Starbucks and many other chains is a complete lack of training, knowledge and  a overall lower quality of service and in the immortal words of Howard Schultz:

“we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have lead to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand.” ~ February 23, 2007 ~

Faces and Places

Where this blog was written: Pike Place Starbucks
Drink ordered: 8 oz Dry Cappuccino
Discount of own to-go cup: 10
Barista Knowledge:  Both cashier and barista were quite knowledgeable
Barista Friendliness: quite nice, with a soft up sell skill set.
Website: www.starbucks.com

Back, way back in the early years of the 90s I loved Starbucks. I couldn’t get enough of this new drug. I have even been to the first ever Starbucks in Pike Place Market, Seattle. I mean I was a fan. I was used to coffee from McDonalds, BC Ferries and Petro Can. But this was actually good…and those barista’s were so friendly and knowledgeable.

Skip ahead a couple years, when I lived in Yellowknife for three years and rarely saw a Starbucks (or any other chain for that matter). But, Javaroma roasted its own beans and is totally independent. My love of coffee grew. I did a lot of travel up there and had some good and not so good coffee; the best was in Greenland. It was a Danish roast that was cheap as hell and got me through a number of hangovers. To this day I don’t know what was in that roast or why it was so cheap, I don’t speak Danish, but it was so good. The Canadian Customs Agents even joked about having to confiscate my brew during my repatriation in Iqualuit, NU.

Vancouver visit not complete without a visit to Starbucks. . .

I visited Starbucks occasionally every time I was in Vancouver. I still found that friendly service but noticed they were everywhere. I didn’t have to search to find that diamond in the rough. It kind of spoiled the adventure for me a bit when I could find one on every street corner. I wanted more then a 100% Arabica bean and a cute smile from the female barista behind the bar. I wanted culture, stories and the community of people that inhabited the shop. I wasn’t finding that at Starbucks anymore.

A trip down south

The Starbucks Paradox by Bernie Hou

I moved to Winnipeg and found a few independent chains that were as good, if not better than Starbucks. but to skip ahead a couple of years, I had the chance to visit Bogotá, Colombia in 2004. My eyes were open to the world of coffee and how we are exploiting it. I had some great and not so great coffee while I was down there but every shop and cafe I went to seemed to have so much character with a little old lady walking around with cream and sugar or a broom, it was cute. I hate to see what cookie cutter cafes would turn that country into. Also, it was very difficult to get coffee to go in Bogotá, you had to sit and enjoy your beverage. It was kind of nice to sit, relax and enjoy the aroma and chat with your neighbour.

When I moved back to Vancouver in 2005; the Starbucks Paradox (the one thing Starbucks had created they were slowly destroying) had taken over the city, but even more than that. Baristas were now telling me how my drink was made or the way I should like it, and what I should drink. Obviously they were right being the biggest and best coffee chain in the world, they can set the tone that everyone else should follow, right?

Not religious enough

A friend of mine was going to be fired for not taking out her nose stud when company policy changed. She said her mother had given her nose ring to her since puberty and it was a religious symbol in her faith. Starbucks said that was fine but she had to prove it by getting documentation from more than three religious leaders. She was shocked and horrified. . . and left the company not wanting to fight the rule and left after two years of successful employment.

You’ll have to wait a minute because it’s an instamatic

Although the speed and efficiency of the Barista was greatly improved by the automatic machines, the quality of the drinks suffered. It would be great if I could get a latte on any street corner in Vancouver in less than a minute, but why would I want one if no care was put into the making of it, should convenience trump quality?

Disclaimer
(amendment Feb 2009)

I still go to Starbucks about once a month, just to see what is going one. This rant is to show I don’t hate Starbucks because they are the biggest coffee chain on the planet and everyone loves a good David versus Goliath battle. I hate Starbucks because they don’t hold to the virtues that they once held so true.