Fonzie Abbott on Racecourse Road

Racecourse Road is not a good place to go for coffee; there are not many places that can do a passable long black. You can find dining, a Coles Metro and occasionally even large numbers of drunk people with a temporary interest in horses, but finding a good coffee is harder. Unless you go to a small espresso bar called Fonzie Abbott, just next to Vagelis.

Fonzie Abbott Cafe

Fonzie Abbott is named for the first pet and first street that one of the owners lived on, just like the pornstar name meme. I can only assume that this is somehow related to the rooster in their logo.

The cafe is more of an espresso bar, with a small footprint and not too many seats. The coffee they serve is not just the best on Racecourse Road, but compares well against cafes in other areas too.

Fonzie Abbott uses both blends and single origin beans, with the single origin beans changing regularly.  There are a few light meals and a selection of beers available as well, and apparently they also do Espresso Martinis on Fridays.

There are not many places on Racecourse Road that can do good coffee, and fortunately Fonzie Abbott is an exception. The decor tends towards hipster, with its second-hand aesthetic and the mix of blends and single origin beans. It is my pick of the street if you want a good coffee, long black or otherwise.

TL;DR

• Better than the other cafes on Racecourse Road, because…
• The coffee is actually good
• Pornstar meme name
• Espresso Martinis

Fonzie Abbott Espresso
http://fonzieabbott.com
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Fonzie Abbott Espresso, 1/30 Racecourse Road
Hamilton
Ph: 07 32684293

Little Big Man Espresso

There is a strong positive correlation between the number of cool suburban cafes in Brisbane and the value of the Australian dollar. This is hardly controversial as any country able to support a growing number of nifty locations serving coffee away from the inner city must have something going for it.

You’ll find one more of these on the corner of Thorrold and Dickson Streets in Wooloowin. Little Big Man Espresso is in a good position for the morning commuters. Dickson Street carries a lot of through traffic, and it is surrounded by houses and near a train station.

Takeaway Coffee From Little Big Man Espresso

Little Big Man Espresso is actually located in a mostly unchanged old corner store. With the counter at the back of the building, there are tables and chairs inside and a number of stools and low tables just outside the door. There was even one solitary drawing on one of the walls, hopefully promising more to come.

The cafe looks very cute and is so new it has no real visibility online just yet. They serve Genovese coffee and do a respectable job with it, and already seem to be attracting the early morning weekend crowd. If you live in Wooloowin, be sure to check it out, a local cafe is not to be ignored.

TL;DR

• Looks cool
• Great commuter location
• Serves decent coffee

Little Big Man Espresso
Facebook Page
86 Dickson Street
Wooloowin

A Long Black Coffee at Bar Moda

It is hard to find a good coffee in the city outside of normal work hours. After 4pm, almost all of the cafes close, leaving just a handful huddling around the mall, nothing like the number of options available during the workday.

Bar Moda is an office hours cafe. Sitting in the foyer at 307 Queen Street and surounded by other office blocks, it is not likely to get much foot traffic on the weekend. During the week is another matter entirely though.

Bar Moda has two counters, one facing out of the building and another inside. There is seating near both, but most importantly, the two counters keep the takeaway orders turning over fast. The coffee is strong and good, though the latest one I had was pretty hot for black coffee. I imagine it would have been fine as a milk coffee.

There is one more thing: they have free WiFi via CafeScreen. The service looked interesting and it ran an image insert/replace in some RSS feeds within Flipboard. Twitter and email were fine, but I did not stay long enough to try it out properly.

TL;DR

• Takeaway orders move fast
• Good coffee, better if you like it with milk
• Free WiFi

Bar Moda
307 Queen Street
Brisbane CBD, 4000
ph: 3221 0101

Work Desk Coffee

Industrial estates are not known for cafes. Currently I work in an office in Eagle Farm, and unlike when I worked in Spring Hill or Milton, getting a decent coffee is all but impossible. Barring work-supplied instant coffee, the only other options are to bring in your own takeaway coffee, bring what you need to make it yourself, or the coffee van, which turns up most mornings around 9:30.

The Coffee Van

In case you have never seen one, a coffee van is pretty much just that. A van, with an espresso machine and an amusingly spelled or phrased name, whose purpose is to drive around selling coffee and light snacks.

The coffee itself is usually acceptable and the prices are fairly reasonable, comparable to what you would expect to pay in a cafe. Which is good, considering the lack of alternatives closer than a ten minute drive away. The one that stops by my office is a Cafe2U franchise van, which fills the cafe gap as well as can be expected.

It never is just about the coffee though; cafes are more than just a well placed espresso machine. A coffee van is not something you can go to for lunch, or a destination for a coffee run and a chance to leave the office. A coffee van does not come close to replacing the ‘Cafe Closest To The Office’ experience.

For those who have been consigned to the office denizen nether hells of a suburb in the middle of nowhere, the coffee van is a rare glimpse of how things could be, if you worked somewhere else.

TL;DR

• If you work near a good cafe, treasure it.

Takeaway coffee at a Powerlifting Competition

Working on the desk at a powerlifting meet is a busy job. You need to ensure the lifters get their next attempts in before they run out of time, keep the lifters aware of the lifting order and make sure the result from each attempt is entered, and often all three at the same time. If you add announcing to this as well, it’s a real juggling act.  But at least the organisers will often buy you a coffee.

Metalwork from August

The 2011 Queensland Open Powerlifting and Bench Press Competition was held in Jindalee, at the Fitness First gym.  Due to a broken arm from August, I am currently unable to compete, at least if I want my squat total to be greater than 20kg. This is why I have helped with the desk and the spreadsheet at the last few events I’ve been to.

The Fitness First in Jindalee is located in the DFO shopping centre. There are not a lot of coffee options there, and considering the only other cafe I saw that morning was a Gloria Jeans, a Coffee Club long black was not to be sneered at.

It was as good as expected – the coffee was not burnt and it was drinkable. Most importantly of all, it helped me get through the whole competition. The free Subway sandwiches for lunch also helped.

Coffee Hit, a Brisbane CBD cafe

In the Brisbane CBD, there is a cafe called Coffee Hit on King George Square. I was in the city early for an Interactive Minds event, and I needed to get some form of caffeine. Coffee Hit looked promising, in a generic CBD cafe way. And they met my expectations, in a generic CBD cafe way.

Coffee Hit's Dollar

Except for one thing. The change that they gave me for the coffee. The dollar coin was damaged. Well, defaced. Scoured is another good word for it. Ground down would also work, maybe even savaged, if I wanted to use something more emotive.

Both sides of the coin had been very comprehensively scratched, possibly obliterated, you might even say brutally torn into. All trace of the Queen, and the unique Australian wildlife that decorated its once unmolested form had been remorselessly eradicated, like kangaroo genocide. That is completely unfair. I gave them real money for the coffee; it seems a little mean to give me something that almost wasn’t change.  It’s nearly as bad as getting New Zealand money.

The coffee itself was OK. Like a lot of rather ordinary long blacks, it was a little too bitter. Since it was also boiling hot, that wasn’t a real surprise. Like their coffee, the prices were in line with most other CBD cafes as well. Nice location though.

Seriously, what am I going to do with that one dollar coin?

Long Black at the Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital

A few weeks ago I broke my arm. It was a compound fracture of both my ulna and radius and I did it while walking the bar out from the rack at a powerlifting meet. I was setting up for my second squat of the day when I heard two snaps. Those were my bones. At least my first squat attempt of the day had been good.

As a result, and thanks to some prompting from some guy who works in Emergency there, when the paramedics asked where I wanted to go I said the Royal Brisbane & Womens Hospital (RBWH). I spent the next few days there for a spot of surgery, followed by periodic visits to the fracture clinic and physio after I was discharged. That was when I discovered that there is a coffee cart outside the food court.

Since the physio clinic starts on time I am often early enough to get a coffee from the coffee cart. I first had one from here when my sisters came to pick me up after the surgery. They got me an XL long black and brought it up to the ward while I was waiting to see if I could get discharged. Between surgery the night before and a number of very good painkillers, I was in no position to judge it at the time.

But I am now. They use Piazza D’Oro beans and while the result does not do them any favours, it is very drinkable. It was sold at city prices, but was closer to a suburban Coffee Club standard. However your options are pretty limited, because the only other option is the Nescafe cafe near the entrance, and I was not about to try that place out.

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Take away coffee

The Easter Weekend is a bad time to try to do anything. Shops keep odd hours, assuming they open at all, and then there are the family gatherings. On the Saturday it was hard to find anywhere local and open for a quick coffee, and that is why I ended up getting mine from a plant store.

It was not too bad. The coffee was ok for $3 takeaway and the store was on the corner of Sandgate road and a side street, making access and parkingcont easy. What made the difference the other weekend was that it was open. It might of been a plant store, but I could buy a coffee there when everywhere else was closed.

McCafe Long black coffee

Early on a Saturday morning I was on the way out of Brisbane with my sister to Warwick for a family function. She is a pharmaceutical rep, and consequently is used to living her work day from her car. She gets her breakfast on the run, buys coffees for her doctors from whatever chain is local to their surgery, and gets her morning coffee from a drive through. This Saturday, it was a McCafe drive through.

My sister and I ordered our long blacks. At this point my expectations were very low. McDonalds just does not exist in my mind as an option for coffee at all. After we had placed our orders at the drive through, we were then directed to park just off to the side. Once the vehicle had stopped we were set upon by a rabid surveyer intent on asking if we would buy more coffee from them at a location near where we live. Why they needed to know name, email address, phone number and blood type for this was beyond me. The coffees arrived before she had managed to climb into the car with her maps, pad and pens and we were on our way.

I actually did not mind the coffee. Maybe my expectations were set very low, or I just was not in the mood to be contrary, but it was OK. It was a little watery, and I suspect that even in a large cup they only use one shot, but it was not burnt and I did not regret having it without sugar. I have had worse in the past. For fast food coffee it was acceptable, and as long as you are not expecting a Sirianni’s or Illy coffee, it won’t disappoint.

Retro Espresso takeaway coffee

If you travel near Edinburgh Castle Road in Wavell Heights on the way to work, Retro Espresso is a great place to grab a long black. On Friday each week I drop in and grab a strong regular long black that can usually see me through until lunch time. Assuming I do not get bored and make another just to break up the morning. They use Segafredo beans and make a strong coffee.

On the weekends Retro espresso is a popular morning destination. The café attracts both people cluttering the side of the road with their cars, and a significant number of dog walkers. They do a decent breakfast even though they have no kitchen facilities, but they do well with their range of sandwiches and coffee.

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Why should you care?

If you live in Wavell Heights or you go through the area on the way to work, it is a great place to grab a takeaway coffee. Parking is easier than at the well known cafe spots, and you will be back on the way to your desk fast. If you are a local, for a weekend coffee in the morning, you will struggle to find somewhere as good locally too.

194 Edinburgh Castle Rd
Wavell Heights
http://retroespresso.com.au/