Re: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
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Money seems to be the big thing with all of them, and people are more familiar with the franchises.
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The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
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Re: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
Really, its not about coffee for any of these franchises though is it?
Its all about money. :
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Guest repliedRe: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
All i can say regarding those statistics trev, is itll be interesting to see how much they change in the next two years.
I did a stint at the Coffee club here in South Australia and in terms of quality of coffee, theres nothing positive i can really say about it. Horrible machine setup, stale coffee and no commitment to quality espresso. Ive had countless arguments with reps/upper management and training persons about the most basic of what id consider to be standard practises. I was constantly repremanded for grinding on demand, wasting time cleaning back the machine with the blind filter and for pouring latte art.
And on the food side (at least in SA), they use the same suppliers as GJs, Hudsons and Sbux, though at least they do have a kitchen that does prepare some things fresh. And the pictures of some of the stores up north look impressive, but its a classic case of just about every coffee franchise spending money on everything but the coffee.
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Re: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
Guess where youres truely works? You guessed it, at a Coffee Club in brizzy
Not just any coffee club either. According to the statistics, the busiest coffee club in Australia (for anyone who owns a cafe or knows the numbers, over christmas we were taking in $7-8 Grand a day, and $11G at its peak).
Im not going to say that Ooooo the coffee club makes the most awesome coffee ever! or OMG TCC coffee makes me cry.... but I could! The MOST important thing to remember about the coffee club is, its a franchise. That means every coffee club is only as good as the people who own it and run it.
Im pretty unfortunate and fortunate at the same time, I work at a coffee club that is not well run :P Im fortunate, because they hired me with no experience
A year and a half later, Im now one of there most experienced employees and do everything there...just not coffee :P I only make coffee for workmates. 
I have to confess, my coffee club makes terrible coffee. Most of our baristas are self taught or trained by others not equiped to train others... Day after day, I have to charge people $4 for coffee that I wouldnt drink. Just getting back from work, Ill give you some examples of things that happened today, AND happen every day of the week. Cappucinos that have been drinking more Red Bull than I, soo light they practically float.. Flat whites that really should be that red bulled cappuchino. And lattes which picked a number between 1 and 30 and decided thats how many millimeters of foam that it was going to have.. Even if I know the coffee is terrible, there is nothing I can to about it... AND, all of this, from a barista who JUST GOT BACK FROM COFFEE CLUB TRAINING... That being said, she was making good coffee at the beginning of the day, but old habits die hard, especially when you have to be pushing out coffees at rediculous speed just to keep up with demand. She went from making consistant ok coffee, to inconsistant good coffee.
That being said, we did recently hire, and subsequently fire, the best barista my coffee club had hired since Ive been there, and since our Head manager has been there (FYI: fired for reasons completly unrelated to his skill beind the machine). Interestingly, He lived in used to work in a coffee club in townsville (which for the non QLDers is considered outback to brisbanites) and was trained on the job, and very well so! Every coffee was done to perfection, and to cap it off, every latte and flat white featured a lovely rossetta.. Mighty impressive.. Though had little understanding of the finer details of coffee...
Ive also had a chance to chat to some managers at other coffee clubs (we get half price and sometimes free coffee from other coffee clubs
), and there seems to be a common theme, coffee clubs run by the actual coffee club (aka not really franchised) feature extensive training, and produce excelent coffee all the time. The coffee they made for me certainly confirmed this.
A fun fact to make any esspresso lovers head spin, for the last 5 months, I knew our grinder was set WAY too coarse...However I didnt say anything because I feared being shut down by my head manager, who has no love of coffee and wouldnt understand.. Infact most people at the coffee club that I work at have NO love of coffee! It boggles my mind...
My manger and ALL of our baristas would probably consider a 10 second pour a GOOD thing, quicker coffee
sigh... It was only until Head office came in a couple of days ago that they finally politely adjusted the grind! I mean, OMG... I make myself a double latte today, and on first sip, WOAH... man that went from being way too bitter to too sour!!! No-one at my work would know how to adjust the grind, let alone why you would adjust it... atleast now its in the ball park of being good espresso (for the first time in a long time, there was the lovely espresso aurora around the place
)... We had a manager from another store come in on the day I worked after it was adjusted (before I found out head office adjusted it). I asked him oh so you finally adjusted the grind?? and he was like no? what?.... That made me cry a little inside, all of the stores owned by our owner made the same sub-quality coffee...
And ofcource, hes the kicker... Ill give you a few statistics which Ive estimated from my one and a half years of experience...
99% of people wouldnt know good espresso if it hit them in the face... (only 1 person has ever complained about the flavour of our coffee the whole time I have worked there)
80% of people wouldnt know if there coffee was too hot, or too cold...
50% of people wouldnt realise if there coffee was made well or not...
25% of people actually notice the difference between skinny milk, and full cream... (we have a terrible practice of making skinny full cream and vice versa when its busy/the barista is lazy)
Last but not least! Around 5% of people DONT even know what coffee they ordered...
Oh well... Im only talking out my coffee club here by the way. (if youve been read this far! I have to tell you, avoid TCC Chermside like the plague
) All of the coffee clubs in the city (owned by the Head office) have all made wonderful coffee
but be weary, consistancy is not consistant between coffee clubs... In comparision to say Starbucks :P Their coffee is consistantly interesting
I swear there is sugar in there milk...
Hope you enjoyed the read
Trev
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Re: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
Regardless of coffee quality, the cofffe club will win hands down with a better (not good) but better sit down food offering than GJs and Michels.Originally posted by Lovey link=1210759197/0#12 date=1210908001Theres a coffee club apparently moving into a shopping centre here soon, I say apparently as quite a few shops have had a false start in there so far.
It will be up against a Gloria Jeans, Michels and a Billy Baxters.
It will be interesting to see how long they last in there, theres a rather large turnover of shops, and quite a bit of competition.
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Re: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
Its not just chains.
I found one good coffee in Terrigal last time I was there.
Different PBTM in the afternoon and the coffee was no good.
I ran into the new owner of another cafe later that night and we got to speaking and she guessed who made the good coffee.
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Re: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
Bottom line I think with chains is whats already been mentioned - it depends who makes your coffee on the day. Some stores may tend to be better or worse than others but youll hear mixed reports of every chain. How can you definitively state the quality of coffee at Cibo, TCC, Gloria Jeans et al when these names might represent a hundred stores employing thousands of staff and making millions of drinks a week? You may be able to pick up a trend that some chains tend to be better or worse than others, but you *will* always find exceptions and plenty of them.
IMHO, the only times you can really come out and say "Coffee at xyz is really good" is when xyz refers to a specific store youve visited on a number of occasions and know the quality is consistently good regardless of which staff member is on on the day. Chain store outlets arent precluded from this but youre more likely to get such a result from an independent store with a passionate owner who has the power to make the right decisions, without being fettered by executive policies on equipment, coffee or training contracts. For this reason, I think it should come as no surprise that the stores which consistently set the standard in espresso quality in this country (or abroad for that matter) are individual stores, not chain outlets.
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Re: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
Theres a coffee club apparently moving into a shopping centre here soon, I say apparently as quite a few shops have had a false start in there so far.
It will be up against a Gloria Jeans, Michels and a Billy Baxters.
It will be interesting to see how long they last in there, theres a rather large turnover of shops, and quite a bit of competition.
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Re: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
My thoughts exactly, David. Was totally unimpressed by my one and only trip to a CC franchise.Originally posted by Wushoes - David S link=1210759197/0#6 date=1210826383
I dont care who you are, if youre going to have any reference to coffee in the name of a cafe, you better darn well serve good coffee.
I suppose its possible, however, that HCK has lucked onto a good franchisee there, notwithstanding the quality of the beans they use. Viviane has said that a Michelles franchise down her way makes a good coffee (as long as its the owner that makes it) - not many here would rate them as (overall) makers of quality coffee .
I have had good coffees from a The Coffee Emporium franchise (I understand they are also retail distributors for CS sponsor Diamond C Services - selling the Diamond Italia, etc). Anyway, this franchisee is a dedicated barista (from my observations) and roasts his own beans. (Not sure how he gets around his franchise obligations there .) I wonder how other TCE franchise outlets perform.
Greg
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Re: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
My one and only experience of Coffee Club (at Southern Cross station) was universally awful, coffee, food and service!
It sounds from others experiences that this may not be typical, but thats the problem with franchised operations, they can vary a lot.
Dennis
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Re: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
My wife goes to Coffee Club on her lunch breaks at work (Bris)
But cant wait for me to serve her a real good cup of coffee at home
Ahh coffee made with love and good beans cant be beaten.
KK
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Re: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
Originally posted by Not Perfect link=1210759197/0#2 date=1210770899Hi HCK
My feelings are that if you think the coffee is great...then it is.
Agree 100%
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Re: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
LOL.
Sounds like you had a rough time Dave.
.
Well i really have no intentions of going to Starbucks because there is none around in Armidale. But i will say that the BMW/Starbucks Sirena could be my coffee machine (<<yes the car company) and its only $600.
EDIT: Correction i just found it for $400
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Re: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
Hear say is bad. Unless you know first hand and can substantiate a claim, I wouldnt say anything. Go visit a Starbucks, then make up your mind.
I started off my barista career at the coffee club. Back then to me it was a 2nd job to bring in a little more spending money for a poor uni student. Didnt realise how far I would come from my humble beginnings at the coffee club where training consisted of 2x 3 hour shifts watching people make coffee at another store. After that, I was their head barista for a totally brand new TCC. A bit scary, and boy did we get smashed. The line literally was out the door and snaked around 3 more cafes before it stopped. No idea why, the coffee was bad, so was the barista (me - totally new to coffee) and so were the machinery.
Moving on 2 years later, I visted Port Douglas earlier this year and the only cafe open at 7am happened to be the coffee club. I watched 3 meringue cappuccinos go out and opted for tea.....which, still was quite bad - lots of dust. They charged an arm and a leg for a breakfast which was so sub standard it wasnt funny. In Melbourne, you can expect to find a "Big Breakfast" of good quality for about $15. I paid twice as much.
I dont care who you are, if youre going to have any reference to coffee in the name of a cafe, you better darn well serve good coffee.
Ripped off.....Dave
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Re: The Coffee Club, Not too bad.
Hmmm... Pioneer Roaster, you are right about them being the best franchise. I have not been to starbucks but i have heard a lot of bad things about them!
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