What must ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,’ (and sisters, indeed any intelligent life-forms capable of driving an L3H2 Transit van and being creative about double-parking) struggle against in a dystopian world of generic coffee consumption?
My undeniable answer is dire, soulless Costa Coffee franchises.
Other café corporations spreading mediocrity and peddling over-roasted caffeine are also readily available to despise.
And who better to oppose them than the brave, hirsute band of brothers (and less hirsute sisters) piloting the Spitfire Espresso bar and its tactical coffee Roastery on Osbourne Street? This beacon of hope at a dark (and over-roasted) time is in every way the apotheosis of café indifference.
Spitfire is a large rather rough and ready space with charm, light, an uncrowded feel and pleasingly random bits of café kit scattered around. But you might need to keep your coat on. Unlike R.J. Mitchell’s original, this Spitfire sports a unique and innovative turquoise and orange camouflage system. 2 or even 3 tones of turquoise have been liberally deployed around and about with orange bits filled in for good measure. Well informed staff run the counter whilst table service nipped along with a tablet ordering system. Said staff were sharp, welcoming and finely bearded.
The Spitfire house blend, Gunnerbeans, is an ideal Latin American café basic with plenty of character but is not a right old character like one’s father-in-law. A long black, £3.40, which contained exactly the correct amount of water, ie. not too long was served speedily to me in a most satisfactory cup and saucer. Turquoise of course. Round the corner in Osbourne Street is the Spitfire Roastery, wherein a busy but welcoming becapped and roguishly bearded roaster recommended the Burundi Blend. £14.50/250 grams and worth it.
Outside the Spitfire café, parking is £1.60 for 15 of Glasgow Council’s tense minutes. I sat at the window bench waiting to spot the enemy if they tried to come out of the sun. Inside, the café features a very high ratio of individual loos, ie. 4, to customers. You may find this useful. Spitfire also has a rather than fine merch table with their own T shirts and quality baseball, nay truckers caps with a Spitfire roundel.
You don’t need to be a fan of beards or turquoise-based decor to rate Spitfire. One can just appreciate the fine coffee, reasonable pricing, friendly service and the level of style, personality and individualism that has gone into this café.
I can’t recall who* at the highest levels of academia theorised that it wasn’t obligatory within the greater Roman Empire to wear a toga but people just wanted to. In the same way that it’s not obligatory to own a baseball cap in Britain, but people do tend to.
In Spitfire, it’s not obligatory to like beards, turquoise or Spitfire baseball caps (possibly it is to work there?) but one is still inexplicably tempted by this headgear.
*I think the academic who explained that might have been the famous classicist Professor Mary Beard.
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