It is fashionable in the coffee world to refer to the first wave of coffee bars, the second wave, and so on… but where do we stand now? What next for the British coffee bar?

This is an exciting time to be in the café bar business. And it is also an exciting time to enter the café bar business, as so many people are still doing – the dream of one’s own café bar appears to be a British trait that will never die.

But the British café bar is changing – so, what does the café bar owner aim for, to be abreast of modern needs?

The British café bar has a noble reputation – in the 1950s, skiffle and rock’n’roll were born in the coffee bars of Soho. Up until the 1960s, the Kardomah high street chain was where most Britons became familiar with the smell of roasted coffee (you didn’t have to go in – it wafted out all over the surrounding pavements!)

But in the late 1990s, Starbucks arrived, having cottoned on to the phrase ‘the third place’, positioning the coffee bar as the place between home and work (although they did not, as has been believed, coin the phrase.)   They brought cappuccino and latte into the mainstream of everyday British life.

And in the last few years, the fashion has been to follow the Antipodean approach to super-high quality coffee drinks  – the Aussies and Kiwis have brought a whole new collection of cool cafes to London, have introduced the ‘flat white’ to the UK, and have generally been seen as the saviours of coffee.

So – what have we learned from all this, and for the café owner looking to ride the trends, what next for the independent café bar in the UK?

In the coffee trade, there is a certain amount of unanimity about what the British coffee bars have taken from other cultures.  From the Americans, we have taken the concept of a bespoke drink – that is, making the coffee the way each individual customer likes it. We also learned the takeaway trade, we learned that quality coffee makes a premium-price sale, and we learned that sofas can be coffee-house furniture.  However, we also learned about the ridiculously large 14-20oz drinks, and such curiosities as the gingerbread latte.

From the Antipodeans we have taken attention to the minute detail of a good coffee. We have learned to go back to shorter drinks, ideally 5oz.  We have learned the concept of innovation while sticking to traditional roots – the flat white is arguably an authentic Italian drink.

Opinion as to what we have taken from the Europeans is, in what is probably British humour, expressed more forcefully – ‘we are teaching them a lot’, is a typical comment. However, the concept of the café as a community hub has to be an acknowledged lesson.  (And maybe more so – there is a survey which suggests that the average Briton apparently visits a coffee house twice as regularly as the French, Italians and Spanish, but it has to be said that the figures are doubted).

Useful views on the development of the British café bar come from outsiders. Peter Dore Smith, himself an Australian, runs of one the most fashionable of cool coffee bars, Kaffeine in London. “Being Australian, I feel a bit funny saying this, but the UK coffee industry has been helped along by seeing the success of the quality-style-service model that is prevalent over in Australia/NZ, and incorporating it into cafe life here. The European models have shown us how important cafe life is to their fabric of society and how enjoyable it is – wanting to enjoy that same lifestyle here is helping UK cafe life to be more acceptable.

“The best lesson from the American model is that the larger size does not mean the better quality! Larger sizes are seen as poorer quality, and to remove these sizes is now seen as a sign of the standard of your establishment.”

A detailed view comes from Jack Groot, a café owner in Michigan, and a devoted Anglophile (a particular fan of fish and chips!)  He turned his café business into a consultancy by assessing all the things he got right or wrong in his own business, and turning them into useful lessons for new café owners. “The first time I came to the UK, London didn’t even seem to know what coffee was… and the next time I came I was served Nescafe. The coffees served in the UK were abysmal compared to what I was able to get at local independent coffee shops in my home area.  Now, in a short five years or so, the playing field has changed dramatically. Where I would previously have said the US was ahead of the UK in coffee, they are now neck-and-neck.”

The next critical aspect of café development, says Jack Groot, is the community aspect.
“The first wave of coffee culture was probably the surge that put it on every table, and the second was the proliferation, starting in the 1960s at Peet’s and moving smartly through the Starbucks grande decaf latte, of espresso drinks and regionally-labelled coffee.

“We are now in the third wave of coffee connoisseurship, where beans are sourced from farms instead of countries, roasting is about bringing out rather than incinerating the unique characteristics of each bean, and the flavour is clean and hard and pure. This ‘third wave’ of coffee shops refers to a current movement to produce high-quality coffee as an artisanal foodstuff, like wine, rather than a commodity, like wheat. However, the ‘third wave’ has also coined the phrase that ‘it is all about the coffee’. I disagree. It is all about the customer.  Our coffee bar exists today as a third place. Of course we need great coffee, but the reality is that we exist as a ‘place’ more than we exist as a deliverer of great coffee and espresso.”

It is social history, suggests Jack Groot. “A major difference between the UK and America is that the UK has had much stronger third place in existence than we have. In the years after WW2, the US lost what were major third place venues – local mom and pop restaurants were replaced with restaurant chains, and ‘community’ was largely lost. The UK did not develop the same way – pubs, many of them fabulous third place venues, retained the local flair.” This, suggests Jack Groot, is where the British independent coffee bar will develop. “One of the main things the UK has received from the US is the coffee chain. We Americans have a unique, and often terrible, knack for making something great and then thinking if it is good in one place, it’s better in a thousand!

“Hopefully the UK will take its own base of the pub as a third place and combine it with the ‘third wave’ quality, and create a new category called Coffee Pubs. The combining of pubs, great coffee and a third place, the ‘Cheers’ of community, will be the next evolution of the UK coffee scene. It will be an explosion of independent coffee shops with great coffee, great customer service, great atmosphere and a complete slice of the local demographic.”

This is a more dramatic vision than comes from many people in the UK coffee trade, but not entirely different. Several people predict the continuing rise of the roaster-retailer, the coffee shop which roasts its own fresh coffee in small quantities, brews it, but also retails it in bags at maximum freshness and a premium price.  There is generally expected to be a move towards filter coffee, which allows for the fuller flavour experience of ‘great’ coffees, and for a trend towards ‘guest coffees’, as pubs do with ales.

However, Peter Dore Smith sees something in line with Jack Groot’s prediction:
“I expect more independent roasteries and cafes, a higher media coverage and therefore more consumer awareness of quality coffee. I expect more cafés becoming open for longer hours and perhaps offering alcohol and a more relaxed way of eating and socialising.  And I expect a rejection of the chains, especially those that do not change to suit the current climate and desires of the public.”

There may also be a move towards a different kind of espresso drinking, says Marco Olmi, managing director of the Drury tea and coffee company in London. “What I’d like to see is more twists on the ‘Italian’ coffee bar. That is, a lack of ‘ceremony’, in that it’s no big deal to go into a coffee bar… in Italy, it is natural to slip into a café, drink an espresso, and be out in two minutes.  “This might happen in the UK because we now see a trend towards lighter espresso – the ‘in’ thing for youngsters is to drink espresso, but they don’t like the heavy, strong Italian espresso. They want a light, citrussy espresso, which is bringing a change in roasts, as well as a new generation of consumers.”

It is also widely expected that more cafes will develop as part of a trend for hybrid businesses. This is happening everywhere – local pubs have become village shops and post offices, the coffee house and book shop or art gallery is already a familiar business, and there are coffee houses whose premises double as music shops, crèches, and most recently, cycle shops.  In Europe, there are coffee-shops doubling as laundromats and printshops. In both France and the UK, coffee shops where customers do craft work have begun to appear. (In the north of England, there is even the probably-unique concept of a coffee shop which doubles as a German sausage importer!)

These, it has been suggested, are ways of creating ‘a more profound connection with the customers – one creates a community around specific lifestyle components in it, instead of offering a single service’.  And that is predicted to be the next big trend in the UK coffee shop trade. The one trend which is unlikely to appear here is the one from the warmer American states, who have developed the roadside coffee kiosk staffed by girl baristas wearing only bikinis.

Among those who contributed opinions to this feature were : Angus McKenzie (Kimbo Coffee), Gary McGann (Beyond the Bean), Peter Dore Smith (Kaffeine), Marco Olmi (Drury Tea and Coffee), Prof. Jonathan Morris, and Jack Groot (JPs, Michigan).

Get a Trackback link

3 Trackbacks/Pingbacks

1. 4…

   […]Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. “Yes” is the answer.[…]…

dvd burn software on August 17th, 2011 at 1:56 pm

2. a small question…

   Hi there, I wanted to ask you one thing. Is this a wordpress website? We are planning on moving our webpage from Blogger to wordpress, ya think this is achievable? In addition did you build this unique theme yourself some how? Bless you for your help!…

sanibel island resorts on September 2nd, 2011 at 11:28 pm

3. a small question…

   Hello, I want to ask you one thing. Is this site a wordpress webpage? I’m considering changing our web site from Blogger to wordpress, you think this is practical? In addition did you create the following template yourself some how? Bless you for the …

sanibel island resorts on September 4th, 2011 at 8:58 am