Buon Amici’s Coffee

Normally, this is a three star for inconsistency in service and the price, but have you ever been here on a Friday for lunch? Not only do they host a BBQ, but the burgers are real. Not those frozen box kind that look homemade either. Real burgers, with a strangely great texture. For a while I thought maybe I was eating a veggie burger, but there is meat in there, it’s just they’ve got lots of other stuff too. Fabulous, for less than a ten spot you get a real burger with all the fixings on a fresh, toasted bun and a huge mug of tea. Have I ever mentioned the tea here is awesome. Go for the Earl Grey, or the grapefruit. Yes, grapefruit, try it!

Buon Amici’s is all right. It’s the coffee shop nearest work, which is my main reason for patronizing it.
Their coffee is quite good, and their espresso drinks are very beautiful to look at. They have a good tea selection, and their sandwiches/​wraps are decent. That said, the prices are all about 20−25% higher than they should be, for what it is. I’ve had really disinterested staff, verging on rude, a couple of times, too.
I do like that they put out jugs of water and glasses, and sometimes they’ll have lemon water and cucumber water, which is refreshing and delicious.
And they have a confection called a cranberry blondie that’s very worth making happy noises over.
All in all, it’s a high-​end coffee shop doing adequately what other coffee shops do adequately for less money, with a little less trendy-​snooty vibe.

Buon Amici’s serves quite decent soup, sandwiches, and munchies.
The owner, Derek, won a Western Canada Best Barista competition; he does breathtakingly lovely latte art, transforming a boring beverage into a thing of beauty. It makes you not want to drink it, to avoid ruining the symmetry.
The soup’s surprisingly good, and the flax seed sandwiches are yummy.
(Unfortunately, I don’t go to Buon Amici’s for the coffee, so I can’t speak to that, though I presume the judges knew what they were talking about.)