Categories: coffee-tea-shop-rating
Date: 06 April 2009 12:54:18
I am one of those people who likes "to do coffee" with friends and has a more than a passing aquaintence with National Heritage tea shops. So it is I have decided to begin sharing my recommendations, as appropriate. It also gives me an excuse to seek out a variety of venues in the name of "research".
Today I begin with Esquires in Durham, who I have just discovered from the website is a Canadian company who have only begun expanding in the UK over the last couple of years.
I like Esquires for a range of reasons:
1) All their hot drinks are fair trade and so you don't have to ask seperately
2) Whilst it has a central position on the high street it's also by the river and the view is quite pleasant
3) They do a range of flavours of coffee, hot chocolate, milk shake, tea and smoothie and they also offer flavoured cream on top.... delicious
4) They sell lots of cute looking cookies (although I normally don't indulge)
5) Whilst slightly pricey they do have a loyalty card scheme and so you can end up saving money if you make it a regular
6) The staff are friendly and provide a good service
7) It's clean
8 ) Upstairs you get News 24 on the screen to glance up at whilst you're chatting
9) They have a small amount of seating outside aswell as two levels indoors
10) They have a mix of comfy chairs and more functional ones all of them are quite comfortable
So is there anything not so good about it? Well it can get a bit busy and when this happens the space between the till and the bar where you get your drinks does bunch up a bit. It can also get a bit noisy sometimes, although not too much.
Only other thing that niggles a bit is when they have a promotion on you can't avoid it..... it's a bit of a case of overkill on the posters, etc. That said the current promotion did prompt me to buy a mint milkshake, something I'd never considered before but delicious.