St. Louis coffee connoisseurs have quite a few options to choose from if they’re tired of patronizing the dozens of Starbucks around the city. One of the newer, local chains is Cafe Breve, with locations in Imperial, Missouri, SBC Center, Clayton, and inside St. Anthony’s Hospital. Here’s a look at the coffee, food, and service offerings of Cafe Breve, and how it stacks up to other St. Louis coffee shops.
Coffee – Any basic judgement of a coffeehouse should center around its coffee, and you won’t find percolater-prepared Folgers or Ronoco beans at Cafe Breve. They get fresh beans daily, and prepare fresh coffee constantly, with a variety of blends including some great flavored coffees. It’s very refreshing to see a coffee shop around St. Louis that serves actual fresh coffee, never burning the beans or reselling a stale blend. To be honest, I believe Cafe Breve has the best coffee in St. Louis, maybe just because it’s sof
Food – The food is fairly typical, though done well, with the usual assortment of sandwiches, paninis, soups, and breads. They’ve got some unusual choices, like a pretty decent reuben, but overall it’s typical sandwich shop fare, presented and prepared normally. The prices are adequate for St. Louis, at about $6-7 a meal. Some of the Cafe Breve locations offer local beers, too, which is nice to see in a coffee shop, especially since St. Louis has some great beers to offer from its Schlafly Breweries.
Service and Atmosphere – I’m not a big fan of chains of coffeehouses, even small chains, but Cafe Breve avoids some of the common pitfalls by promoting differentiation in its restaurants. For instance, local art is put on the walls for decorations, changed out every month or so, in some locations, and while some things like the menus, signs, and offerings of the shops are the same, there’s definitely a different atmosphere to each one.
One constant is good service, as Cafe Breve seems dedicated to hiring employees that care about what they’re doing, and not the high school, snotty baristas of some of the other chains around town. For this article, I spoke with the management of a few shops, and they were happy and even excited to explain their vision for the chain. It’s good to see a group of coffeehouses that are thinking as much about providing great products and service as the bottom line, and though I’d personally prefer it if Cafe Breve wasn’t a chain at all, they’re doing a good job at what they do.
Overall, if you’re around the area, Cafe Breve’s certainly worth a stop, if for nothing else than a great cup of coffee locally brewed, and I’d like to see more of the stores pop up around the St. Louis metro area.
Have you been to Cafe Breve? Post your thoughts in our comments section below.
