Thursday, June 30th, 2005
Had a late coffee and antipasto last night with Ennis at The Boroughs Cafe Wine Bar. We’d arrived for the national Uniting Church Lay Preachers conference in Margate, checked into a motel and headed out to sample the night life. Redcliffe, we discovered, does have a number of cafes and restaurants open on a Wednesday night. We drove along the peninsula from Margate to Scarborough and decided to try “The Boroughs” because of the ambience peeking out the door. Turned out they’d only been open one week.
The Boroughs was a long and narrow cafe with a strong sense of community, looking out over Moreton Bay. The kitchen had just closed but the ‘Winter Grazing menu’ was still on. The antipasto included olives marinated on site. Ennis tried the chai tea - black tea with cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves and honey, made like a latte. I asked the waitress for an afrogato (icecream and espresso) and she said they’d have a go. It was spot on. Mind you the espresso kept me awake all night.
Check out the web site. Pop in to 97 Landsborough Rd, Scarborough and say hello to Mark Pritchard and Bruce Neal. (I assume the “borough’ name comes from the street name and locality name. This is a fine example of a ‘third place’ where people will keep coming back.
Tags: Dining
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Sunday, May 8th, 2005
After yesterday’s passion and purpose workshop I met my daughter in Brisbane for coffee at Gloria Jean’s Coffee House, on the ground floor of Borders. It was an excellent spinach and pumpkin lasagna and a decent latte. Only two purchases to go before I get my free regular coffee.
When I first came across Gloria Jean’s at Pacific Fair on the Gold Coast my first reaction was, What’s another American brand doing here? As it turns out, Gloria Jean’s Coffee is owned in Australia by Nabi Selah and Peter Irvine, Sydney businessmen who are members of Hillsong Church, Australia’s most well known mega church. Does that make it any better? The food’s usually over priced, just like Starbucks. But the coffee’s good.
At the end of last year Gloria Jean’s Australia arranged to buy the international operations wing off their USA parent company. Coffee roasted in Castle Hill, Sydney, will be exported to all Gloria Jean’s coffee shops in other countries. And it looks as though they’re doing fine. Imperialism is OK if it starts here!
Gloria Jean’s made the news last month (see SMH article) by building a cafe in the visitor’s section inside Dillwynia Correctional Centre, in Sydney’s west, where female inmates will sell coffee to visitors and staff. Gloria Jeans tells us they’re not making any money out of it. The prisoners behind the counter get paid something like 85 cents an hour on top of their usual allowance. I wonder if they’ll get paid extra for public holidays? I guess this could become a trend - a trend befitting Australia’s history as a collection of prison colonies.
In the meantime, the real Gloria Jean is doing fine. Gloria Jean Kvetko set up shop in Long Grove, Illinois, in 1979. She sold the gourmet coffee business in 1993. Since then she’s experienced marriage break up, the death of a close friend, and breast cancer. She’s written a book, Journey to Prayer, outlining her experience of God’s love in the tough times.
One of the quotes on her web site caught my eye:
There is even sexual division in coffee, believe it or not. Men want real coffee, masculine coffee. Women love flavored coffee. Hey, maybe we can learn something from that (laughs). When men have a little more flavor, they are more desirable to women!
Tags: Australia, coffee, Gloria Jean's, Hillsong
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