Best coffee-shops: pros and contras

This is a post to go with #TheCoffeeShopPrompt challenge run by Cinnamon Cup Coffee community - week 51. This time we are supposed to talk about the annoying stuff - the things that we do not like about coffee shops. Well, thats easy: bad coffee!

Haha. Actually, it is not such a simple question. When we walk around the city with my picky friends... or with my wife (she is also picky)... - I think that we all become picky if we are given such wide options to choose from, right?.. in general, this situation often repeats itself, when we circle around the city, we check one place, another, a third - and we cannot stop, because not a single place pleases us 100%. My good friend, @tatdt, who irregularly makes me a company during the photo-walks across the city, even created her own personal Google map with marks of proven coffee places. The map is always at hand in her smartphone and helps to calculate the routes and minimizes the time we spend on exploring the coffee spots to land!

Below is the map I just googled out, while working on this blog. This is sort of an ad... of course, personal map relying on one's personal customer experience, would be a better thing!

The coffee itself, I assume, is served everywhere plus-minus apparently the same, so other determining factors are: convenient location, unique design of the space, comfortable and cozy atmosphere, delicious pastries in the menu, and - to a lesser extent - the price tags.

One of the most unusual coffee shops of the city - located inside (and on the top) of the Monument to a Horse-drawn Tram! It is located at one of city's key points, just 30 meters from the crowdy Vasileostrovskaya central Tube station - and literally, could simply sell tickets for its top observing platform, without a coffee menu at all. (Ok, just kidding:))) (By the way, note the luxurious flavor the #nightphotography provided to the image - this monument doesn’t look so cool in the day hours. That’s the reason I love night photography!).

Quite an ordinary latte like this you may get perhaps everywhere... but this place - located at a quite hard-to-get loft location at Petrogradskaya storona district - became my fave coffee shop from the 1st visit. By the way, they serve a very convincing pizza, tho this wasnt the most important; the key feature is the spacious loft atmosphere, ideal for talking (or hours of working in no hurry with your laptop).

Finding a right place for coworking can be tricky - I am not after this feature, but I easily can see it can become a key feature of the coffee place, and this one matches perfectly.

So, we usually land at a coffee shop not so much for a coffee tasting, but rather for a conversation supported by a quiet, pleasant atmosphere. (Yes, it turns out that my post is a discussion about what kind of atmosphere in a cafe I prefer). A dark, dimly lit intimate space for me is a minus. I love good lighting (photographers do prefer good light to the poor one). Without sufficient light, one can get only a dull picture like this:

Does this visual attract you? I guess not too much :P

I simply hate tiny wobbly tables and chairs... especially when they're made of thin plastic. I prefer good old wood ones!

A solid table made of thick rough boards and a lot of space around is ideal for me, this is what my eyes look for when I enter a cafe shop to decide whether it is worth stopping here or not. Sometimes even 10 seconds is enough to take decision: lets move on!

Poor peeps! they could not find a good cafe that satisfied their taste, and were forced to drink their coffee standing in the open air. By the way, they are located right in front the windows of very cool place at St.Petersburg's coffee map (Bolshaya Konushennaya, 25) - my wife and friends used to stop here dozens of times, for the cheap and simple coffee with hot donuts.

This is a very simple place, it looks cheap indeed; a lot of plastic is used for design, and a lot of other stuff that does not appeal to me - but there are some significant pros too, which outweigh the contras. Let me underline, that design is not the only factor that is decisive...

As I mentioned in the very beginning of my blog, we come to the coffee shop to communicate with a friend (or friends), thus - loud annoying music playback, or wide TV screen with silly music videos, or news programs, or sports broadcasts - that maybe another thing that makes me flip-flop and close the door momentarily. Same with smoking or smelly atmosphere. Thanks god, this became pretty rare to find, I dont remember last time when I encountered such a place, but still. If I stumble upon such a coffee shop I will leave it without hesitation, in a fraction of a second.

This coffee shop (located in my neightborhood - just 20 mins by foot) was established back in 1956, in soviet epoch, and one of the very few old places that did not changed much with years. It is one the reasons it is popular - and the other, of course, is the tasty and cheap pies it suggest! Believe me or not, but it always has a sufficient crowd, sometimes even outdoors! The folks vote with their time and money to enter it. Thats a good mark, isnt it?

All images taken by me, copyright (c) @qwerrie

My posts at pinmapple.com

Thanks for visiting my blog!