On a warmly Wednesday, in breach of all commuter coffee proximity guidelines, Phat Coffee's shiny reputation magpies us Way Out West. At first, it seems like a manageable sidestep between train station and office. At second, an 'are we there yet' distress text from friend of MMC strongly suggests otherwise. Will it be the elusive 'worth it walk', or the wasted one? The Order: one regular skinny cappucino, and one medium flat white, takeaway. The Prices: $3.00 regular and $4.00 (ouch) medium.Phat, adj: 1) Cool. 2) Pretty Hot and Tempting. As in "Dude! That shit is phat!'" What would we do without the Urban Dictionary? With a name so ghetto superstar we don't know what they are, Phat Coffee / Kitchen are pretty sure of themselves.
Specialising 'in corporate catering Monday - Friday' since 2003, they're tap-tap-tapping into office snack supply. Ever modest, the Phat website also explains that the business "has established it’s self as one of the areas leading coffee shops". Not one of the area's leading punctuators, Phat Coffee inspires enthusiastic testimony from suitably artsy students who value coffee over commas.
Phat Coffee, phat decor? The Shopspace: slick front-facing counter reinvents a speckled marble look. The Greeting: as casual and immediate as the horizontal orange logo - it leaps from the black of walls and uniforms worn well. Funnily enough, far from Bean Bars, we're still in orangetown, and no closer to decoding its marketing magic. Sure, Phat use Rio Coffee, so orange cup conformity is convenient, but standing across from the UniSA school of marketing, we're sure there's more to the storyboard.
Straight up, the black / brown element of coffee's colour-scheming is a no-brainer. Apparently, market research guinea pigs, aka "consumers", are over associating brown with 'dirt' - as a colour it's now 'rich' and 'robust''. Black, synonymous with death and depression, is now consumerspeak for modernism and sophistication, and also the face of our short and long espresso friends. Orange and brown hail from the same section of the colour spectrum, but is that enough of a causal link? Dear Phat Coffee, Rio Coffee, Bean Bar, Viva Espresso, Energize, Fix Coffee and Taste: why orange?
Online, theories abound. Apparently, orange stimulates the appetite. It's the universal safety colour. It contrasts well with the sky, because blue and orange are complementary colour buddies. Also, since culturalia like A Clockwork Orange and Andy Warhol's screen prints, orange smacks of modernity, with designers labelling it 'the visual equivalent of an exclamation point'. Damn those invisible exclamation points Perhaps more relevantly, orange, like red, is a warm colour. By reminding us of things like fire and sun, orange evokes warmth. Mmmm, a warm cuppa...
The Lesson: dude! how phat is marketing? Maybe it wasn't colouralia that inspired our kilomarch, but word of mouth sure did. Phat referees all mention its frank, fantastic service. Casually greeted but left to our deciding devices, we felt suburbs from the crazy busy district. We wait minutes that could have been moments, but don't begrudge the barista chitchat. Even the bircher-loving blogger at Adelaide Cafe Review ('ACR') pays homage to great service before praising great muesli (and fair enough, at $5). Also well served, MMC goes all bad journo and buries the lead, the heartbreaking hometruth of 'the coffee being bitter and thin'. It's undeniable. One year since ACR, and Phat Coffee is still flat coffee.
Link: Don't believe me? Ask Adelaide Cafe Review
No comments:
Post a Comment