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Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.
This past June, Urbana Coffee (1033 Bay Street) quietly opened at Bay and St. Joseph, diagonal from Film Fest haunt Bistro 990. Six months later, it already has a loyal following. Café owners take note: this is how you do business.
First up, there's free wireless internet at Urbana—a rarity in the city. To complement the wireless net, Urbana has plenty of available electrical outlets throughout the café for your laptop or smartphone. (Obvious, right? Not so much. Ahem, Aroma, we're looking at you.) Next, the staff at Urbana is friendly and unpretentious. They patiently explain drinks to you and even say goodbye to you as you leave. We're so over snooty baristas who think they're snooty bartenders, especially since we can't stand snooty bartenders. As well, the store is environmentally friendly, using biodegradable cold cups made from corn and making an effort to use mugs in-store to save on disposable cups. We bought our reusable cloth sleeve at Urbana and can't live without it. In addition, the coffee is fair trade, including some organic blends, and prices are still comparable to the corporate chains. Finally, the reloadable card at Urbana is the smartest system we've seen yet. Unlike other cards that promise convenience as the only benefit, Urbana makes it worth your while: you're treated to a free drink for every $20 reload, and using the card scores a 10% discount off everything.
It's amazing how much thought has gone into the customer experience and we hope Urbana forces its competition to step up. If you're not near the Bay Street location, there are plans to expand to five stores in 2008, including a location at Yonge and Davenport. For more information, call Urbana at 416-960-1033 (a website should be up by early 2008). Free wireless, friendly service, and fair trade coffee. Yup, Urbana is f'in good.
Photo by Jaime Woo
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oh yeah i love urbana. i love going into a coffee store and them not knowing how to make a chai latte, and having to wait twenty minutes while the employees "experiment". sure, they serve fair trade, they're environmental, free wireless, whatever. it doesn't detract from the fact the food is stale and their coffee tastes like cat piss.
I think all the features are the right direction for all cafes. I haven't any problems with the espresso-based drinks, but I can't comment on the chai lattes. I will say that FYI the chai lattes from Second Cup are made from a powder, but Lettieri uses actual chai tea.
Wow, looks very... sterile and corporate - complete with guilt-assuaging "Fair Trade" stamps of approval for liberal arts grads, a strict greeter policy as to not hurt any of the emo customers feelings, and wi-fi, so you can interact with virtual people instead of real ones. A modern, liberalist McDonalds of sorts. Fun!
I can tell you, as a former employee of Starbucks, that this place's policies (as you've described them) are in no way different from Starbucks when I worked there (3 years ago). Except for the free drink thing - but Starbuck's give out free drink certificates like candy, so it's not really a selling point.
If you actually want a non-corporate experience, try going to a place that isn't trying so hard to be corporate (Balzac's and Tango Palace are two of my favorites - but there's lots of others).
I really like their chicken sandwich. That's all I can attest to––that, and that I always, always get it confused with a Starbucks because of how similar its logo is. For an indie coffee shop, it is sure doing its best to mimic the thing it's most opposed to.
Can we retire the facile corporate v. indie distinction? As the comments on this article attest, it is rarely helpful.
4 and 5 look down their noses because the supposedly independent coffee shop feels like a corporate chain - i.e, it has some of the signifiers ("fair trade" and "organic") held dear by the anti-corporate crowd, but fails to have others (a brief list: mismatched furniture, quirky staff, non-harmonized product, hip music in background, hadwritten or chalk signage, posters/billboards for local arts events) that complete the anti-corporate facade.
It opened in June. It aims to expand to 6 stores. It is a chain. It is almost certainly incorporated unless the owners enjoy staking their personal assets on a new business in a mature segment of the marketplace. What makes it independent other than the aspirations of its visitors to distinguish it from the big bad american brand?
So wait, is their coffee any good? And is the espresso real and not-watery? Did they actually have chai lattes on the menu, or did someone just say, "Can you invent this drink for me?". If they already had it on their menu and no one knew how to make it, that's sort of embarassing, although I've had it happen at Starbucks before too.
Where I work we don't make chai lattes, so when a customer asked for one I gave her a latte and a chai tea bag. It didn't seem to be what she was looking for.
I'm not a fan of the No Logo BS that corporate must be bad and indie must be good. A company that can meet the needs of its customers and provide progress in its industry deserves notice. Wireless internet is a great addition to allow grabbing movie times, driving directions and email. (I don't get why people blame the internet for isolating people, when it's up to people how they use the net!) Oh, and the coffee at Urbana is on par with Starbucks/Timothy's/Second Cup.
Hmm, "Oh, and the coffee at Urbana is on par with Starbucks/Timothy's/Second Cup." is sort of a non-answer, but I will wait.
I think I'm going to head for a chai latte on Saturday, and I'll report back using the wireless internet! I've also haven't tried just straight espresso there so I'll definitely give it a... shot. Oh, I'm here all week, folks.
So, basically, what you're saying is: Urbana coffee is exactly like Starbucks/Timothys/Second cup, but has free internet. Their coffee may or may not be any good.
How exactly does this make them a hero? Over say... the public library?
I go to certain cafes for good food and exceptional coffee, not because the baristas there don't make me feel uncomfortable.
I'm not sure where the heroism is here. They seem to be aspiring to destroy any remaining competition in the coffee shop/cafe/coffeehouse/espresso bar/roastery circuit.
What Toronto almost certainly doesn't need is more coffee shops. You cannot go anywhere without finding a decent coffee. You can get decent java at a McDonald's or a Sobeys these days.
The mark of a decent cafe is whether or not they can pull a decent espresso. None of the chains, from my experience, have been able to do so. A couple of tiny places in Little Italy aren't bad.
There's a new place on Sherbourne called Bisogno that makes fantastic espresso. The best I've had in this country. Also, the staff (one guy) is super-friendly and he won't make you feel like a tool.
Well, I tried it today and while the coffee wasnt great( the snacks were though!), the place was really nice and the people who worked there were awesome.
It don't hold water to Cherry Bomb on Ronny though....
When I chose Urbana Coffee, I knew Torontonians were passionate about their coffee. I also think Toronto is big enough a market to sustain a lot of coffee chains. The fact that the Second Cups and Starbucks have raised the bar for quality in coffee is a win for customers. As one poster put it, even McDonald's has good coffee. It couldn't have happened without competition. Urbana sells a quality product. It wouldn't get mentioned if it didn't.
Besides coffee quality, there are other areas that cafes can improve upon. If every Starbucks had free wireless, offered plenty of seating, provided electricity and outlets for laptops, had fair trade coffee across the board and began using biodegradeable cups, I would be impressed. This is what Urbana accomplishes. To challenge the corporate chains and push them into a new direction is noteworthy. Does applauding Urbana prevent other independent cafes from being noteworthy? Of course not.
But I forgot how beverages from coffee to water to alcohol tie in to the lifestyle we aspire to have. Even Karen Whaley in her critique of Jet Fuel amusingly notes there's a part of her that wants to be included, despite Jet Fuel's shortcomings. Urbana is practical and maybe that pisses some people off. (How is Urbana more corporate than any other café? Are the other cafes non-profit?) People can find an unpretentious place to catch up with friends, sit down to do some work, or drift off into their imagination, and all while having a solid cup of fair trade coffee. Meanwhile, the cups they use are more eco-friendly, they get great value for their buck, and they don't have to stress about getting kicked out or having their laptop battery die.
I still don't get why a café that can accomplish this deserves so much haterade?
Alright, Urbana had my vote prior to the Heroes and Villains feature. However, today is the second time since Wednesday that I've gone in and asked for lactose free milk, only to find they didn't have any. Today the barrista's response was (offering), "We have skim milk."
I appreciate that she was being helpful, and yes, it's possible that there are people out there who just don't get it, but her reaction surprises me and bewilders me a little. Urbana's lost a couple of points for me and this saddens me. I like they're vision, their socially responsible practices, the location, the product, the fact that it's fair trade. I have a reloadable card. Is soy and/or lactose free cow's milk too much to ask for? How about barristas who know that skim isn't lactose free?
Maybe their cups are eco-friendly, but what about the fact that they don't even have one recycling bin in the whole damn place? How contradicting is that? So then you really have to ask yourself if they are doing it for the right reasons.
Apparently providing electrical outlets and wifi is not obvious to most coffee house owners, and so if Urbana has adopted this practice I will go there, even if they don't make the perfect espresso.
I am sitting in a coffee shop now. I’ve been working steadily on my laptop for a few hours, steadily purchasing coffee and snacks to keep myself happy and focused. In about 20 minutes, I’ll run out of laptop power. So instead of having lunch here, I’ll head on home and finish work there. It looks like the owners of this coffee shop disconnected/covered up their electrical outlets. They seem to believe that this will increase business. Is this true?
I don’t go to coffee houses to just sit there and drink coffee. I go there to work on a creative idea within a friendly and comfortable atmosphere, and engage in sporadic social interactions. Over time one meets others who are working on their creative ideas. Who wants to work at home or in their dingy office if they can be out in a beautiful city and blend it with a social experience?
Someone should do a study and determine once and for all if providing for the needs of creative workers [students, freelancers, etc.] is good or bad for coffee house business. I am really curious! I have known several coffee house owners in the previous town I was in. Three listened to their customers and provided for laptop users. Their chains were constantly expanding due to booming business. I remember one location in particular that was packed with artists, freelancers, PhD students, even activitsts, and other people that wanted to be around people like that.
Overall, I find it hard to believe that following an obvious customer trend could be bad for business. Also, if anyone reads this, please suggest other places to go that have electrical power and wifi [but that also have a nice atmosphere]. I am new to TO.
I agree with Rainy and Jaime Woo. While Urbana's coffee is no better than what is served at any of the other chains, I have become a loyal customer because it is a nice place to work. I have a choice of Second Cup, Lettieri, Starbucks (2), and Timothy's within a block of my place but I'll walk another couple of blocks to Urbana so I can sit at a comfortable table, enjoy free internet, and write my thesis.
Let's face it. This is not Italy or Portugal and, with rare exceptions, unless you go to an Italian or Portuguese cafe, most baristas simply learn to push buttons and follow a recipe. Most seem to have little understanding of what's behind a good simple espresso. I've tried having an espresso at Starbucks twice. Both times the barista made the espresso in a little shot glass and then poured it into the espresso cup. It obviously ruined it. I have completely given up on espresso-based coffee in any of the chains. All their lattes taste like coffee-flavoured milk. For good espresso that isn't measured in a shot glass I go to Kensington Market on the weekends.
But Urbana has really good teas.
A year later, they still don't have a website. Any idea of if/when it's going live (if at all??)
Just got back from Urbana Coffee at Bay and Wellesley - got charged $0.50 just to add soy to my black coffee (not a cap. or latee). $0.50 for a drop of soy in black coffee - I can see $0.10 but $0.50?. No Hero here!!!