Cafe with a community vibe

Friday, 16 February 2024

Conor Knell pops up the hill to Brooklyn to visit a cafe comfortable in its community.

Caribé Cafe sits at the heart of Brooklyn ‒ an inner city suburb that feels somewhat separate from the action down the hill.

The cafe is on Cleveland St, where the local pub, fire station, takeaways, and shops all serve residents keen to stroll to their local centre.

Caribé matches the atmosphere of the suburb. The small and colourful cafe fits with the smallness of the suburb’s main shopping street and the character of the residents.

It’s a diverse neighbourhood. Across the road construction workers are building a housing block, mixing with the locals as they line up for the cafe’s own roasted coffee served by barista Davind Tor.

“You get a lot of regular customers and you see similar faces every day which you don’t really get working in town just because there’s so many different people.

“When you're working here … you kind of get to know the locals around the area which is something I feel I haven't got at other places I've worked.”

The cafe’s frontage is an eye-catching yellow and the counter inside is painted in a spectrum of colours.

The big front windows make the place feel bright and open linking the inside with the action outside.

“It’s very welcoming probably just because everybody here knows each other,” Tor said.

Tor has been a barista for four years and works in a series of cafes at different times of the week, but prefers the familiarity and friendliness of the Brooklyn cafe.

He’s a mocha drinker, and it’s also one of his favourites to make.

“I’m a bit of a latte art guy. I find that pouring a mocha is easier just because it has chocolate powder which makes it easy to pour compared to chocolate sauce.

“So while I do like drinking a flat white as well, I find that a mocha is more beneficial for me and lets me practice my pouring a bit in the morning.”

The $5.20 mocha he poured was indeed excellent. Thick, lots of chocolate, tons of flavour, it felt like drinking a grown-up hot chocolate.

A regular flat white costs $5, a long black is $4.50, a regular flat white is $5, and for any extra shots on top, that’s another dollar. The cafe roasts their own coffee beans, which are all imported from the Caribbean and Central America.

Caribé cafe is out of the way. It will never attract the throngs of tourists or the business rush that other cafes down the hill might do. But it doesn’t need to. It’s there for its community - providing good coffee.

There may be flashier cafes with all the trappings and accoutrements of what visitors expect Wellington’s coffee culture to be but Caribe doesn’t bother with any of that and, for that reason, it is about as authentically Wellington as you can get.

Thank your barista

Love your barista? Know of a generous loyalty scheme, an excellent brew, a must-try bean or a steady price? As cafes do it tough The Post wants to hear from coffee drinkers and cafes alike, so we can spread the word about, quite simply, good coffee. Email news@thepost.co.nz.