No, neither did I. 7-Eleven coffee was absolutely last resort coffee, desperation coffee. That was until two nights ago.
I was in Sydney and saw a new format 7-Eleven coffee shop on George Street. I’d not seen a 7-Eleven like this before.
The front third of the shop looks different to the rest, darker, cooler, like a coffee shop. The back bit was the usual 7-Eleven garish and bright.
But enough about the look. At this massive coffee machine, a real machine and not some glorified cafe bar type machine, making fair dinkum live coffees was a barista. Someone showing passion for making good coffees. This is not what I had come to expect from 7-Eleven, the masters of prepackaged everything … the place of nothing really fresh, nothing made for you.
Until now.
At this 7-Eleven on George Street in Sydney you can get a coffee which looks, smells and tastes like a fresh espresso from any of the many coffee outlets in Sydney’s CBD.
While newsagents bitch and moan about what is said or not said about their future, 7-Eleven is experimenting and innovating. Kudos to 7-Eleven. This is the future, playing with the model, trying new things, showing customers that your business is not what you thought it was.
Welcome to retail in a disrupted and challenged world. The innovators will thrive and the best the rest can hope for is to survive.
I believe you are right, they are positioning themselves to compete and outmanouver various business’s with a view to capitalise on in this case what Newsagencies have had a “monopoly” on for a long time.
I am suprised that they have gone to that length with the quality of coffee, they are challenging multiple small business’s it seems.
Frankly Derek I didn’t want to believe the coffee was as good as it was. If what I saw rolls out through other CBDs, it will certainly challenge several models.
The seven eleven you are talking about has been serving real coffee for a couple of years now and is probably the busiest seven eleven in Sydney city.
On days where a $4 for a coffee seems inflated, I go to a 7-Eleven in Melbourne Southern Cross Station that serves up a $1 coffee that rates at about 7/10. Please note though that some tweaking is still required to obtain even this standard. 2 things to remember. Avoid using their sugar, because the satchels have included in them a wood stirring stick, that results in a woody flavour inevitably permeating the taste of your coffee (yuk). Also don’t forget to remove the cup before the over zealous machine is done, because it wants to overly apply milk and ruin the strength. As for most of the other 7-Eleven stores, if you see a brown plasticy-smallish auto coffee machine huddled into a corner with no action, turn around and run like blazes. It will probably be completely unacceptable and have you internally in knots about the $1 you have just handed over for a totally undrinkable beverage.