Red Circle Coffee Co
When cycling around Kitchener-Waterloo in Southern Ontario, it quickly becomes apparent that there are an awful lot of bicycle and walking trails and bits of bicycle infrastructure which do not actually directly lead to anywhere. This lends locals familiar with the situation to string together a series of bizarre routes which oft times double back on themselves in an effort to avoid automotive traffic. It is worth it to explore and learn what links with what.
Thankfully, the Red Circle Coffee Co is ideally situated along one of the busiest trails in the cities and offers a respite and slice of civility away from tortured route planning.
Located directly off of the Iron Horse Trail which runs from the southern edge of Waterloo through to about one third of the way through Kitchener where it uncerimoniously dumps riders onto Ottawa Street without even the benefit of a ramp, the Red Circle Coffee Company is an island of civility. The roastery is part of the new Catalyst137 building, built into a section of the old now defunct Uniroyal Rubber plant. The Catalyst137 building is very well served by a massive parking lot, and is directly connected to the Iron Horse Trail via on and off ramps. There is a berm like hill between the building and the trail though and there are no signs indicating that there are pieces of the Catalyst137 structure which are open to the public. Cyclists and pedestrians are much more likely to just stop places than people driving, so some signs indicating the existence of the roastery and associated businesses would be a very good thing to install at the base of the ramps to the parking area. Hint hint...
The structure is very bicycle friendly although much more (and better) bicycle parking would be a very good idea. This is not a problem unique to the Catalyst137 building. Like most places in Canada, there seems to be about 50 spots for cars for each spot for a bicycle. Sigh.
It is a good thing that Graham and Monica are very bicycle friendly (we park inside at times in their other location and I have seen high end bicycles inside the Red Circle Coffee Co already).
The Red Circle Coffee Co is the brain child of Graham and Monica Braun, the owners and operators of Monigram Coffee Roasters in Galt (a review of that establishment will be forthcoming). The situation in the Catalyst137 building is different than in most other places. The space is huge, built as it is into an old converted factory. Its primary focus is to serve as a catalyst for tech development, a sector of the economy which the whole area is known for. Smart phones were basically invented locally (RIM/Blackberry), Google Canada has its headquarters here, there are two top flight universities and one college, and more tech start ups than can easily be counted. People in the tech sector like coffee. So it makes sense to locate a top flight roastery into a catalyst centre to encourage tech development.
Red Circle Coffee Co works collaboratively with several other food and drink service companies on site. There is a small brewery, the Red Circle Brewing Co.; a restaurant, the Graffiti Market; an ice cream shop, Four All Ice Cream; a bakery which serves all of them; and of course the coffee roastery. This enables all of these companies to share space and share resources and the effect of this is to create a community centred around food and drink which open and inclusive.
The seating area of the Red Circle Coffee Co spills directly out into the commons between the different parts of the building. There is little to distinguish the roastery from the rest of the place. The bakery is directly attached to the coffee shop and houses the massive roaster for coffee. Currently, the coffee for the Red Circle Coffee Co is roasted at Monigrams, but Graham will be roasting on site once his roaster is up and running. The walls surrounding the bakery and roaster are made of glass and it is easy to watch people at work inside. Shared space is the order of the day.
The baked goods served are top notch. Warmed pasteries are warmed in a convection oven and do not lose their crisp flaky nature. They are working towards getting the kitchen up to speed (the Red Circle Coffee Co is very very new and construction and finishing touches are still happening at the time this review was written). Like the coffee, the baked goods are extremely fresh. It helps having a bakery on site.
The Red Circle Coffee Co sells coffee in bags and all the fixings for making coffee at home in a proper manner. Most of what they sell for fixing up coffee is very high end stuff and most of it is manual. There are no cheap plastic coffee creation devices sold here. Come to this place if you want to make good coffee at home and believe that plastic is bad. They sell a host of top flight Italian and Japanese coffee making tools as well as Chemex products and filters.
Graham takes his coffee making seriously. I remember him telling me that he founded Monigrams because he was tired of having to drive to Toronto for a decent coffee. There was no place local that did exactly what he wanted, so he started doing it. Beans sourced by Graham are fair trade and, as far as I know, organic in nature and come from parts of Africa and South/Central America. He has done trips to see some of the farms the beans are grown on. Coffee is small batch roasted and bagged with the roast date printed on the label. There is no mass produced coffee here and it is not stored for months in a warehouse. Generally, it is sold very quickly and is very very fresh.
I have yet to have a bad coffee or espresso drink at Red Circle Coffee Co or Graham and Monica's other location.
Just go there and enjoy.
Regret it you won't.
Thankfully, the Red Circle Coffee Co is ideally situated along one of the busiest trails in the cities and offers a respite and slice of civility away from tortured route planning.
Located directly off of the Iron Horse Trail which runs from the southern edge of Waterloo through to about one third of the way through Kitchener where it uncerimoniously dumps riders onto Ottawa Street without even the benefit of a ramp, the Red Circle Coffee Company is an island of civility. The roastery is part of the new Catalyst137 building, built into a section of the old now defunct Uniroyal Rubber plant. The Catalyst137 building is very well served by a massive parking lot, and is directly connected to the Iron Horse Trail via on and off ramps. There is a berm like hill between the building and the trail though and there are no signs indicating that there are pieces of the Catalyst137 structure which are open to the public. Cyclists and pedestrians are much more likely to just stop places than people driving, so some signs indicating the existence of the roastery and associated businesses would be a very good thing to install at the base of the ramps to the parking area. Hint hint...
The structure is very bicycle friendly although much more (and better) bicycle parking would be a very good idea. This is not a problem unique to the Catalyst137 building. Like most places in Canada, there seems to be about 50 spots for cars for each spot for a bicycle. Sigh.
It is a good thing that Graham and Monica are very bicycle friendly (we park inside at times in their other location and I have seen high end bicycles inside the Red Circle Coffee Co already).
The Red Circle Coffee Co is the brain child of Graham and Monica Braun, the owners and operators of Monigram Coffee Roasters in Galt (a review of that establishment will be forthcoming). The situation in the Catalyst137 building is different than in most other places. The space is huge, built as it is into an old converted factory. Its primary focus is to serve as a catalyst for tech development, a sector of the economy which the whole area is known for. Smart phones were basically invented locally (RIM/Blackberry), Google Canada has its headquarters here, there are two top flight universities and one college, and more tech start ups than can easily be counted. People in the tech sector like coffee. So it makes sense to locate a top flight roastery into a catalyst centre to encourage tech development.
Red Circle Coffee Co works collaboratively with several other food and drink service companies on site. There is a small brewery, the Red Circle Brewing Co.; a restaurant, the Graffiti Market; an ice cream shop, Four All Ice Cream; a bakery which serves all of them; and of course the coffee roastery. This enables all of these companies to share space and share resources and the effect of this is to create a community centred around food and drink which open and inclusive.
The seating area of the Red Circle Coffee Co spills directly out into the commons between the different parts of the building. There is little to distinguish the roastery from the rest of the place. The bakery is directly attached to the coffee shop and houses the massive roaster for coffee. Currently, the coffee for the Red Circle Coffee Co is roasted at Monigrams, but Graham will be roasting on site once his roaster is up and running. The walls surrounding the bakery and roaster are made of glass and it is easy to watch people at work inside. Shared space is the order of the day.
The baked goods served are top notch. Warmed pasteries are warmed in a convection oven and do not lose their crisp flaky nature. They are working towards getting the kitchen up to speed (the Red Circle Coffee Co is very very new and construction and finishing touches are still happening at the time this review was written). Like the coffee, the baked goods are extremely fresh. It helps having a bakery on site.
The Red Circle Coffee Co sells coffee in bags and all the fixings for making coffee at home in a proper manner. Most of what they sell for fixing up coffee is very high end stuff and most of it is manual. There are no cheap plastic coffee creation devices sold here. Come to this place if you want to make good coffee at home and believe that plastic is bad. They sell a host of top flight Italian and Japanese coffee making tools as well as Chemex products and filters.
Graham takes his coffee making seriously. I remember him telling me that he founded Monigrams because he was tired of having to drive to Toronto for a decent coffee. There was no place local that did exactly what he wanted, so he started doing it. Beans sourced by Graham are fair trade and, as far as I know, organic in nature and come from parts of Africa and South/Central America. He has done trips to see some of the farms the beans are grown on. Coffee is small batch roasted and bagged with the roast date printed on the label. There is no mass produced coffee here and it is not stored for months in a warehouse. Generally, it is sold very quickly and is very very fresh.
I have yet to have a bad coffee or espresso drink at Red Circle Coffee Co or Graham and Monica's other location.
Just go there and enjoy.
Regret it you won't.
Thanks for all of the kind words Chris. Fair Trade coffee may not go far enough, so we endeavour to make more thoughtful sourcing decisions. I like this video for a brief overview of the difference:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zvSO43SOtk