Ideate

Search for the Great South African Cup of Coffee: E2

by Fred on 02/07/07 at 3:09 pm
4 comments

When I was a student, I remember discussing ‘the dream business’ in our cafetaria at Cape Technikon, drinking R1 coffee and smoking Stuyvesant Blue. The best one we came up with was the coffee shop / record store / clothing shop – an idea shared by millions of wannabe entrepreneurs around the world. You know the one, right? People will come and buy clothes during the day and drink multiple cups of cappuccino. Then, after hours, you clear away the merchandise to reveal a dance floor, and then a flight of stairs would lead to the roof of the building where patrons would mix and mingle away into the wee hours. You’ll be millionaire in no time!

When David Duarte mentioned the radical new coffee shop / clothing store / social media flashpoint called E2 (like E squared, I think?), it piqued my interest. E2 has created a pretty loud buzz in the short space of time it has been around. David explained that the place was the brain-child of an entrepreneur after our own heart, Eric Edelstein, someone deeply involved in building businesses in South Africa.

I took the ‘Undertaker’ (our designer Paul) with me, so that we could have our weekly design / creative / life meeting. It is a couple of meters from our Sea Point studio, and well positioned to become a regular jaunt. E2 is on the west side of the Sea Point strip, surrounded by a luxury burger bar and an estate agent. The best part about this place is the collection of superfly t-shirts displayed on their shelves. Priced nice, this is the dream spot for someone for a little sartorial edge.

Paul and I reclined on the couches and ordered two cappuccinos, which promptly arrived in some styley looking mugs. Smooth, and very tasty, E2 offers a very accomplished cup of coffee. The specific thing about this coffee was the lack of bitterness, a hallmark of many South African cofee shops.  The flavour was sufficiently strong without being overbearing – with a nice head of foam to round it off.

Well done Eric, Shelle and team! Great clothes, great coffee – what more can a working man want on a Monday morning?

Location: 11 Regent Road, Sea Point (there’s one in Durban too)
Owner: Eric Edelstein, Shelle Friedman
Phone: +27 21 433 2895
Cappuccino price: R10, or R8 if you’re a member. You sign up at the till, and then become part of the social media collective. Well worth it.

Meeting potential out of ten: 5 (there’s only one place to sit, so you lose out if someone arrives before you)
Coffee rating out of ten: 8

Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. He runs a web marketing company called World Wide Creative and loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. View more articles by Fred.

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