Should a Speciality Coffee Shop Serve Vanilla Syrup?

I was on shift with Yannis, our manager at Bond Street Coffee in Brighton, recently, chatting about his trip to Amulet in Glasgow.

He’d absolutely loved it. From the way he described it, it sounded like a proper coffee person’s coffee shop: single dosing, pour overs, espresso, and a real focus on the coffee itself.

Naturally, we got talking about what we could learn from that and what we could do better at Bond Street.

I love the idea of a café having that much confidence in what it does. Being able to say, “This is our thing, and we’re going to do it as well as we possibly can.”

When we opened Bond Street back in 2014, that was very much the sort of coffee shop I wanted to run.

Twelve years later, we sell vanilla syrup.

And I’ve been wondering how I feel about that.

The coffee shop I thought we should be

I’ve always wanted coffee to be the reason people come through our door.

These days, with me roasting the coffee at Freda, that feeling is probably stronger than ever. I want to share the coffees I’m excited about, make delicious espresso and put a really lovely filter coffee in front of someone who might not have tried anything like it before.

At various points, I’ve talked about getting rid of tea, hot chocolate and chai altogether.

My reasoning was that you could get those drinks anywhere in town. We were a coffee shop. Surely we should be concentrating on coffee?

There was a fairly strict idea in my head of what a speciality coffee shop should look like, and quite a long list of things that didn’t belong in it.

Matcha was on that list for ages. Syrups definitely were.

But over the last year or so, I’ve really tried to relax a bit. We now serve matcha. We have vanilla and caramel syrup. People order drinks that younger me would probably have had unnecessarily strong opinions about.

And the café is busier and more profitable than it’s ever been.

I can’t say that’s all down to matcha and syrup, but it does make me question some of those old rules.

Does vanilla syrup make our espresso worse?

That’s the question I keep coming back to.

We still have three single origin coffees to choose from on espresso. We still have a brew bar serving delicious, light roast filter coffees. I’m still roasting, tasting and thinking about how to make the next batch better.

All the things I wanted to offer when we opened are still there.

If you want to explore single origin espresso, talk about what’s tasting good or spend a slightly unreasonable amount of time discussing your coffee, we’re very much here for that.

If you want an iced vanilla matcha, we can make you one of those too.

Does the second order somehow take something away from the first?

I used to think it might. That having certain things on the menu sent the wrong message about how seriously we took coffee.

But now, I have no idea...

The presence of a bottle of caramel syrup doesn’t change how carefully we dial in the espresso. Someone ordering matcha doesn’t make the filter coffee any less interesting.

Perhaps I’d been giving the syrup bottle rather too much power?

Whose drink is it, anyway?

I used to compare it to putting Coca-Cola in an expensive, eighteen-year-old single malt whisky.

You’ve got something that’s taken years of work and care to produce, with so much attention to small details and skill that goes into distilling it, and then you cover it in sugar.

It wouldn’t be how I’d choose to drink it!

But even when I used that example, I’d usually finish by saying, “Well, it’s your money.”

Looking back, that probably came with a slightly judgemental tone. You could have it how you liked, as long as you understood that I thought you were doing it wrong. Which isn’t quite as welcoming as I’d like to think I am.

I still care about all the work that goes into coffee. Of course I do. It’s why I roast it, why I choose the coffees I choose and why I get excited when something tastes particularly good.

But I’m starting to question how much of that needs to become a set of instructions for the person drinking it.

Someone might be fascinated by the origin, processing and roast. Someone else might just want a nice sugary coffee hit to get through their work with a hangover.

I think I would like everyone to enjoy coming into our café.

Can a broader menu help us make better coffee?

There’s also the practical bit, which is slightly less romantic but quite important when you run a business.

Bond Street needs to make money.

We’ve been serving speciality coffee in Brighton for twelve years now, and I want us to be here for plenty more. Having a busy, profitable café gives us room to keep doing the things I’m proud of.

Perhaps the matcha and the vanilla lattes help support the slightly nerdier parts of the business. Perhaps a broader menu makes it easier to keep offering a choice of espressos and spending time on the brew bar.

I don’t have a neat calculation that proves that. But it feels like a possibility worth being honest about.

And if someone loves their vanilla matcha and comes back for another one, that’s a good thing in its own right. They’ve found something they enjoy at our café.

I’m still working it out

Part of me still loves the idea of a tiny, uncompromising coffee shop with a very short menu. Hearing Yannis talk about Amulet reminded me how exciting that can be.

I admire people who know exactly what they want their café to be and have the confidence to follow it through.

But I’m also proud of what Bond Street has become.

I still want it to be somewhere you seek out for really good coffee in Brighton. Somewhere you can discover a new single origin, have a beautiful espresso and take home a bag of the speciality coffee beans I roast at Freda.

I’m just increasingly happy for your friend to come along and have something completely different.

Maybe I’m getting older. Maybe twelve years of running a café has changed my priorities a little?

I still care an awful lot about what goes into your cup. I’m just getting more comfortable with you having a say in it too.

Chris x