Artizan

The art of great coffee and customer service
Image with thanks from Artizan's Facebook page.
How do you choose a coffee shop?

Location has a lot to do with it. With a café and restaurant scene reaching saturation point, you don’t have to go far in Hobart to be spoilt for choice.

Artizan is super close to This Girl’s current work place. In a city block with more than half a dozen cafes, Artizan has a large, loyal following. The Lovely Deputy and I are part of the pack and you’ll find us there most weekdays.
Great coffee and customer service are Artizan’s hallmarks. I sat down with owner, Susan Keele, to get her take on what makes Artizan so successful.

For Susan, cafes are a family business. Her son Hamish manages the Hobart café they have owned for four years. Her partner, Graham, runs their New Norfolk café, Shot, which they’ve owned for eleven years. Graham also roasts the coffee beans for both cafes.
Susan tries to convince me that roasting coffee isn’t rocket science but it’s clear that Graham has a talent for blending bean flavours that make Artizan’s coffee so good. He’s immersed himself in the science and has a good palate.
At this point I realise that I am a coffee Philistine. The consistently great coffee I enjoy most weekdays is a changing feast apparently.
‘We don’t stick to the same blends of coffee. Coffee is seasonal. We buy our beans from an importer in Sydney who sources them ethically from all over the world. We roast daily so we can maintain a consistently premium coffee at its peak for performance and taste when extracting. We also sell beans for the home barista which are sold under the same criteria as the shop – always at their peak,’ Susan says.
Image with thanks from Artizan's Facebook page.
Artizan is all about the coffee and you won’t wait long for it. Susan swears by her baristas – you need good ones – her baristas are also her sons – Angus and Hamish. They’ve grown up in hospitality, making coffee and being well-mannered. They’re joined by Jess who’s been trained in-house.
They have an efficient system with one barista making in-house and two others preparing the takeaways. Each staff member has a clear role and they deliver great coffee quickly.
Even though they’re primarily a coffee shop, there’s a few things to eat – sweet treats like the most delicious little apple turnover tarts and lemon slice, or quiche for example. They also stock protein balls and can make you a toastie. If you want something more substantial or have specific dietary requirements they will happily point you to a more suitable establishment nearby.

And this is an important part of what makes Artizan work. Susan is very clear about the café’s market segment.
Image with thanks from Artizan's Facebook page.
Artizan knows exactly who it is: unashamedly quaint, European coffee club-esque, Generation X and high turnover.

There are a couple of special features that make the service unique.

There’s the trademark little biscuit supplied with each hot drink – it changes daily, and might be lemon and poppy-seed, choc-chip or cinnamon. It’s like a little gift each coffee. Their coffee cups are biodegradable and they are covered in beautiful pictures – owls, cows, vistas.
Image with thanks from Artizan's Facebook page.
There’s no hipster baristas or concrete and steel design. Instead, the baristas don vests and ties and it’s wooden wall paneling and Florentine wallpaper.

I remember the day I realised I was invisible to young people – I’d crossed the age threshold into near oblivion. Artizan has traded groove-thang for an environment where they hope the 35 year-old-plus can feel at ease. It’s working, and young’uns like it too.

They’re helpful which matters, particularly when you’re located near a hospital and serving people with personal challenges and staff off night shift.
Their coffee club is buy 10 and get one free – and it’s electronic – which is probably how they all seem to remember your name, which all adds to making you feel welcomed. You’ll often get a good morning and have a good day and share a (bad) joke with Hamish if he’s at the till or a chat with Susan.

The service is personal, genuine and sensitive.

It’s a winning combination.
Find them at 60 Liverpool Street, Hobart. They’re open weekdays, 7.30 am – 4.30 pm.
Find them on Facebook here

We also like coffee at Atlas when we’re on that side of town, here's a little about their coffee.

Artizan Specialty Coffee Roasters Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato