1 EAGLETON NOTES: Napier Café Culture

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Thursday 25 February 2016

Napier Café Culture

I'm told that 20 years or so go there was very little in the way of coffee café culture in Napier. Now it's a huge industry. I was sure that I'd blogged about this on my other blog but I can't find any real reference to it. Anyway this is a very small selection of some of the ways to spend time having a coffee or meeting friends in the city. One of the things I've always found curious is that many cafés are open very early (one opens at 4.30 am and many at 6.30 am) but almost all (Starbucks excepted) are closed between 3 and 4pm.

The first two shots are of a café  named Ujazi. I was the first place I had a cofee in Napier in 2005. Wendy said "I'll meet you in Ujazi" and that became a meeting place for a long time.  

I should add that some of the café  pictures like that of Café Devine were taken pretty early on before things had got going last Saturday. There wasn't a vacant seat in the place for most of the rest of last weekend.






And two Taradale cafés: the first being the one that opens at 4.30am.



And then to Ahuriri:



This was where I used to go in my early days here when it was Café Ahuriri run by Cheryl about whom I blogged a week or so ago.

23 comments:

  1. My initial observation is that the main clientèle of these cafés are OAP's (I may be wrong). In this part of the world it would be the opposite. Napier looks a very nice, well-kept town.

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    1. Cro the clientèle of the cafés is hugely varied and it also varies with season, day and time and, of course, the type of café. Napier has a large tourist population so they make up a lot of users especially in the summer. There are lots of young backpackers amongst them and they tend to congregate at the cheaper places which offer free wifi. The 'young mums meeting after taking the children to school' are very much in evidence too. Lots of office workers lunch out too. You have made me think about this one and the more I think the more I realise how varied the users are. I shall try and make some (comletely unscientific) observations.

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  2. Warm, warm and sunny. I am a little jealous.

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    1. Hot and sunny Adrian. Very hot and sunny. I'm glad that I don't have to do any physical labour.

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  3. Strange opening times! In Germany, although many people have coffee first thing in the morning, they either have it still at home or grab one "to go" while on their way to work, without sitting down at a table in a café. But afternoons, from about 2.00 pm right through to 5.00, are our "classic" coffee hours. People then meet at cafés for cake and coffee (or tea), and a café that closes during that time would never be able to stick around for more than a few months.

    The blue skies and sunshine on your pictures make me long for warmer weather!

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    1. Interestingly, Meike, I know a lot of people who say they would like caffee after school hours but overall it's not yet accepted by the café owners. Café Nero used to open until 5pm in the tourist season but, despite free wifi, it had a succession of franchise holders who never managed to keep it going. I hope you have an early spring.

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    2. Perhaps the early morning start is for early morning bike riders and walkers? I know that is what happens here in Brisbane where it gets too hot later in the day for such exercise and the early risers like to do their bit before going off to work. It's an Aussie/Kiwi thing obviously !!

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    3. You have a point there Helsie because that's exactly what I and my friends did when I lived down in the city and not out in lifestyle plot country.

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  4. My, oh, my! It would appear that they certainly do enjoy their coffee/cafe society in Napier. There is similar here where I live but I rarely frequent the "cafe society". I have my own little coffee machine here at home...and that suits me just fine...it's paid for itself over and over since I bought it.

    Napier does look like such a neat and tidy city. :)

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    1. Lee I've just shown a tiny fraction of them. I would love to know how many there are in Napier. Tripadvisor lists 97 café/restaurants but I know that a few of them are only restaurants. It's still a lot for a city of 50,000 people.

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  5. Wow! Those New Zealanders really like their coffee and do it up in style. What's with those green leaves? It's great to see the green.

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    1. Yes Red when I lived in both Scotland and New Zealand I only ever saw green because for 9 years I never saw a winter.

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  6. Café here Café there...everywhere a Café...they have sprung up all over the place here too...now I have to add the barista jargon to my resume as a foreign language.

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    1. Yes Virginia I'll have a skinny decaf flat white please. Actually I usually drink plain black Americano.

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  7. Do you have some really great cafes, GB! Too hot for drinking coffee here today! I've enjoyed catching up on your posts - you're as busy as ever, huh?

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    1. Some mild cloud cover today Pauline which was good as we were at Catriona's Swimming Sports and it's an airless bowl of a swimming arena. The temperature was still up in the high 20s.

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  8. How lovely! Outside is always best, isn't it?

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  9. What is it with all these coffee shops? Give me a good old-fashioned pub any day.

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    1. No such thing as a 'good old-fashioned pub' in NZ or Scotland for that matter as I'm sure you know YP. They are not mutually exclusive of course because they generally serve different markets entirely.

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  10. I must say, I am a huge fan of the cafe culture! And as you say, the clientele is extremely varied as are the types of cafes. They are a huge part of the Australian culture and still on the rise.

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    1. Liz I, too, am a fan of that culture and I even when I'm on my own (café culture being, on the whole, better shared) I find that sitting with a coffee doing a crossword and watching the world go by is a wonderful way to spend some time alone.

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