Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Caffé Bene Skips Town

I thought this was interesting. A friend of mine noticed this sign right next to the Union Turnpike subway station across from Queens Borough Hall. Interesting because there was speculation that Caffé Bene had been planning to come to Forest Hills, with one location rumored to be where the new Dunkin' Donuts on Ascan eventually went in. Apparently, at least for now, they've skipped over us and are planning to open way further down Queens Blvd. in that rather sad stretch made even sadder by the fact that the only time I'm there is when I have to do Jury Duty. 


Now, depending on your point of view, this is either bad news, or good. Bad, because Caffé Bene is kind of an interesting chain of nice cafes that would've been nice in one of the many, many empty storefronts on Austin. I've been to one in Manhattan and found it intriguing, albeit a little odd, too.

Or maybe it's good news if you look at it from the perspective that Forest Hills is now home to an amazingly cute little independent coffee shop with excellent coffee and food—Red Pipe Organic Cafe, smack dab there in the middle of Austin St.—and I, for one am rooting for their success. Another coffee shop chain when we already have two (mini) Starbucks in Central FoHi and two Dunkin' Donuts, could very well be overkill and make life that much harder for little Red Pipe.

10 comments:

  1. Love Red Pipe. I live down near 66th Rd and try to get there 3 - 4 times a month. I'm hoping they are so successful that they can expand.

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  2. This is a little out of the way for me, but I think I'll give it a chance to wow me before I officially decide it's not worth the extra long walk. :)

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  3. Independent coffee shops must have extremely small profit margins. They need high volume, low food and staff costs to meet unbearably high rents. When you have to split the profits amongst multiple business partners, it must be near impossible.

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    1. Cafe Bene isn't independent! It's a chain, just not a very well known one.

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  4. Cafe Benne's coffee is not that good.

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  5. Since I live a block away I'm excited!

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  6. Cafe Benne is a multinational Korean chain. It is, in my opinion, not very good. I'd still welcome them to the area all the same (the Bonfire Grill spot?). For the record, one of my buds would prefer an IHOP.

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  7. As ridiculous as this might sound....I finally have concluded that I like the 7-eleven coffee better than everything else. Red Pipe is good but slow.

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  8. are all the dunkin donuts protestors going to protest this one too? NO MORE CHAINS!

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  9. I would love to have ZARA store there. Please please pretty please!

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