I’ve been meaning to get along to BlackStar Coffee in West End for ages. A couple of Facebook friends talk about it incessantly.
Today was the day. I give their coffee a 9/10.
The best I’ve had in Brisbane. Ever. Though I haven’t tried Campos in Brisbane yet.
It’s on Thomas Street (off Vulture St).
Delicious. Full bodied. Velvety texture.
They roast on site, and I picked up some of their Colombian beans, also delicious.
Comments
Their coffee is definitely worth 9/10. And it wouldn't surprise me if it was the best in Brisbane.
I think it was their coffee that led to my wife drinking coffee. My brother gave me a voucher for their beans as a gift, and the smell of those beans + a takeaway flat white was just too overwhelming in the car.
Nathan, Brisbane won't have decent coffee till we have a significant population of Italians. Campos is a franchise and represents everything wrong with the coffee culture in Qld: people prefer it from places like Coffee Club, Gloria Jeans and Donut King. I only ever drink coffee in this city when it's a double shot.
Leigh,
I'd be happy to take you to BlackStar. It was mindblowingly good.
I think we have slightly different definitions of "franchise". Until there's a Campos in every shopping centre it's just a small business with plans for global domination.
What's really scary is that people prefer instant coffee to Gloria Jeans. Which I think is the same for the unwashed masses everywhere, Sydney has been just as open to those places as anywhere else.
The only people drinking Gloria Jeans in Sydney are Americans, people from Brisbane, and Hillsong folk.
Leigh
A franchise is a business where the owner sells the business plan for someone else to open an identical store. You can have two stores and it still be a franchise. Franchises are also about more than just food.
Franchise doesn't need to be synonymous with low quality, but the thing about franchises is that they are all the same. It's part of the attraction of a franchise both to the business owner and the customer. I know that wherever I go to Coffee Club, or Gloria Jeans, or McCafe, the coffee and food will be fairly much the same, provided they follow the plan. But that makes it difficult to have a high standard that everyone could stand up to.
Someone could open a franchise selling freshly roasted coffee beans and still have great quality beans.
I know what a Franchise is. Technically. Campos clearly isn't one. I was just wondering how Leigh could possibly suggest that a store owned by one owner in two locations was a franchise.
Ah, okay. I didn't realise the Campos isn't a franchise at all.
I will just add, however, that I'd prefer to buy an average coffee from a franchise such as Gloria Jeans than an average coffee from a company such as Starbucks, because the money goes into the local community, because the business is owned by someone local.