I’m currently touring Ireland, having started off in the Wicklow Mountains, before driving down to Cork on Sunday. Along the way I took a detour via Waterford, partly because I thought the route would be more interesting, but mostly to visit today’s Coffee Spot, Arch Coffee. There are two Arch Coffees in Waterford. The original, on George’s Street, is closed on Sundays, so I visited the second one, which is just around the corner on Peter’s Street. This is pretty small, although I’ve been told that compared to the original, it’s huge!

A generous outside seating area has three long tables, behind which is the shop. The only seating here is a four-person bar on the left, most of the space being given over to retail shelves (right) and the counter (back). Arch Coffee stocks Dublin’s 3FE, with multiple single-origins for sale in retail bags, one of which is available via a standard espresso-based menu, along with a small cake selection. Note that it’s takeaway cups only, so don’t forget to bring your own.

You can read more of my thoughts after the gallery.

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Arch Coffee is in the heart of Waterford, just west of the City Square Shopping Centre and next to Waterford’s only Caffe Nero which, for some reason, pleases me no end. Long and thin, Arch Coffee is at the back of a wide, concrete yard with the door, which doubles as a window, on the right. Inside it’s perhaps three times as deep as it is wide and it’s not that wide to begin with!

There’s more seating outside than in, with three long, thin picnic-style tables, each with a pair of benches, occupying the space on the left, taking up roughly the same dimensions as the interior. There’s significantly less choice inside, where a single, narrow bar with four round stools runs down the left-hand wall. There’s a multi-paned window to the right, but most of the right-hand wall is occupied by a large set of retail shelves, stacked with bags of 3FE coffee (I counted eight different single-origins).

Finally, the counter occupies the rear third of the store. A counter-top chiller cabinet is on the left, the retail menu on the wall next to that. There’s also a small selection of cookies/cakes which, by the time I arrived at four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, were much depleted. The espresso machine, a two-group Nuevo Simonelli Aurelia II, is behind the chiller cabinet against the left-hand wall, while the drinks menu is above/behind the counter.

There’s a single option on espresso, which changes fairly frequently, usually every week or two, depending on how quickly the current one sells. When I was there, this was a single-origin Nicaragua Los Milagros, which my barista, Brendan, recommended as a flat white. I had this in my HuskeeCup, the coffee and milk, which held the latte art to the bottom of the cup, combining really well.

In closing, I was impressed by the popularity of Arch Coffee. I ended up staying for an hour, largely waiting for gaps in the constant stream of customers so that I could grab a word with Brendan or snap a photo or two. Just as impressively, I’d say about a third of customers were buying retail bags of beans, availing themselves of a free cup of coffee in the process!

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