This is one of the most brilliant ideas I’ve seen in the coffee biz in quite some time. I’m totally stealing this idea for Vancouver, if local cafes want to come on board.

Awesomeness! This is precisely the sort of thing which I’ve been unrepentant in advocating for years. Strong work, Mr Davies. East London, baby!

Pure Genius!

“Loyalty cards” usually put me off & I am sometimes tempted to black ban said venue, but this is a concept I find very attractive.

Curious to see if someone in Melbourne would have the balls to carry out a similar (/selfless) program for the good of the industry.

“embiggen” is a simpsons creation don’t know if it has made real word status yet though.

I had only ever heard it before in the context of “look at ‘em biggens!”

excellent idea!!

I love the notion of encouraging people to visit multiple coffee shops in an area, but i think the notion of sellig it as a disloyalty card is kinda dumb. Celebration of diversity ain’t quite disloyalty. And loyalty doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

I love BRILL in Exmouth Market. BEST coffee that side of old street round about and I go there daily. I go to support them, not because I get a freebie, but I would be dumb not to, and I support them by my on-going custom.

Supporting more than 1 shop by raising their custom isn’t necessarily a bad thing! Counter-culture died int he 60′s you have to think consumerism these days :(

Lovely. This is one of the reasons why I want to come to London for a coffee tour. Until that comes around, I’ll be sending my friends. :)

Amazing Idea Superb….. I am jumping

It’s refreshing to see things like this! Why not ‘share the wealth’ so to speak. If you are dedicated to your craft, and you provide your customers with quality they will come back for more. It is an exceptional service to the customer to point out other quality driven cafés. Whether or not this is a calculated marketing technique or not, it will prove to be beneficial for Mr. Davies’ own business!

A couple of weeks ago we thought, how it would be great, if our regular customers could have a free cup of coffee while travelling abroad.
The idea was to make a list of recommended coffeeshops, where we have been or we know owners, and we are sure of coffee quality. We believe this program will be a kind of educational program, it will show difference in espresso culture, trends, and will help us to establish new brewing methods and tastes profile. Besides we do know how it is difficult to find good place, good cup of coffee when you are abroad.
Customer would receive the list, some kind of, “Country…City…Coffee shop…Address…”. To get a free cup of coffee in one of these best world coffee shops, customer would have to show the loyalty card of ours.

I love the idea of the disloyalty card. I hope these are around for my next visit to London. What a great way to get to sample London’s coffee hot spots and get a freebie at the end! You might like to check out my caffe latte blog and see the range of weird and wonderful caffe lattes one can experience in Australia and beyond. http://caffelatteexperiences.blogspot.com/

The really clever part is that when novices have done the tour they may haveacquired a knowledgeable palate for seriously good coffee and will appreciate the barista-masters brew on another level. So clever! I love this idea.

Great idea! Contemporary and fun! I wish I were there to be this disloyal.

Only saw this now. What a great idea. I would go even further and log these coffee spots on google or put a map on the backside of this card.

Fantastic…..

Regards,
Nana.

I am a barista and coffee roaster in Colorado. My dad is a captain for United Airlines and makes London a very frequent layover destination. I passed along the info about Gwilym’s card and he took up the challenge. He spent all day today going to the shops. I must live vicariously through him for now! It looks like he had a lot of fun and a lot of great espresso!

Thats an amazing idea! Unfortunatly If I did this in North Devon there would just be our place on there. Oh dear.

Lee

I can’t speak for anyone on the card but finding a decaf bean of a good quality is quite a struggle…..what is the demand in London?

I used to work with Gwilym many years ago when he was one of the Managers of Cuppa-Cino in Clapham junction station (when we really cared about the coffee!) with Jorge of ‘Fernandez and Wells’.
We had an artisan take on Espresso even when people were sweating to catch their train (we held many a train to get the person and their drink on board in time! Ah the good old slam-doors!)
I saw an article on Gwilym when he’d won the Championship, I was well impressed!
I’d like to get in touch with him to give him my congrats and to make a coffee or two as well, but he’s a hard man to find. Any tips on finding him would be greatly appreciated… other than staking out his shop and coffee cart… I’m not down with stalker behaviour!

Thank you James for posting this concept and of course Gwilym! Seattle area coffee shops are just about to release our version of this brilliant idea. We LOVE it!

I don’t know what I like more – the card concept or the fact that there’s a coffee joint called Prufrock Coffee in London. Brilliant.