This is a wild west outpost of the Hinba Partick/West End organisation. I’ve been here before as I thought it was the only coffee game in town. Inside it’s ‘mild trendy coffee shop’. Choice of 3 beans as standard, card only because cash is so dated, laminate floor, downlighters, tasteful House playing with the bass removed, some nice art, a pitiless laminated plywood bench coupled with a new monstrosity: a tall, varnished particleboard panel designed to elicit a quick false confession from the sitter. The tables are not for lounging. It’s a reasonable conversion of the space, light and clean. A typical Glasgow/Edinburgh place but atypical plonked down in Oban. There is a good view of the Esplanade and harbour *weather dependant* and tables outside *passing juggernaut and filming tourist dependant*.
Inside, the customers wear high-end white trainers, cream hoodies and work on AirBooks with their AirPods in and their caps on backwards. Is everyone conspiring to pretend this isn’t Oban? Or are Hinba trying to show locals how it’s done?
Previously I’ve felt the staff were a bit off. Last visit I got a minor Ted Talk on beans and the feeling that they thought I hadn’t been in a coffee shop since 2010. The vibe remains that Hinba are slightly doing me and Oban a favour. Prices are city-standard. Very good coffee is served quickly in a nice arty mug. Snacks are small (for the West Coast) and pricey. They sell their own beans, pricey, but other coffee weaponry is limited to Aeropress filters. No Chemex drippers round here. Oban is not ready.
They are repainting the café’s sign. From memory it used to read, ‘Pure Air. Pure Taste. Pure Hebridean’. You may wish to add another purity. I double-check on their website and find all their cafes are called ‘Hinba Specialty Coffee’. The American spelling, not the British. Ooh, Hinba has brought out the pedant in me.
It’s busy in Hinba as locals come in for a very fine but not cheap cup of coffee. Hinba is efficient even if it’s not that welcoming. Maybe I’m not quite good enough for Hinba?
Last time we stopped here I kvetched to Sancho, my co-driver about all my above gripes. She said, ‘Well, it is expensive but do you want a decent cup of coffee or do you want to go to Costa?’
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