How sweaty cyclists have killed off one Birmingham coffee shop
A shift in the commuting dynamic of Birmingham office staff has seen one popular independent coffee shop forced closed in favour of luxury shower facilities and bicycle parking spaces.
Opening in 2011, the popular artisan 6/8 Kafe was voted Best Coffee Shop in Birmingham for 2014 and 2017, and even made the Independent’s Top 50 Coffee Shops in the UK in January 2013.
It’s a sad day when a much loved and lauded coffee shop has to close, but could this be a sign of the times?
With competition on the high street ever-increasing, and being situated in an area that has literally hundreds of hot drink options, could this be the future for many of the latest to jump on the ‘craze of coffee’?
The industry has many problems to face in the coming years, coffee popularity itself seems to show no signs of wavering, with shops cropping up and businesses shifting their targets towards the ever-increasing demand for quality hot coffee.
Of course, this is a strangely unique situation, as Birmingham city council have declared the space be newly utilised for cyclist commuting facilities in a bid to curb the ever-increasing city traffic and aide congestion.
Turning the much-loved coffee shop, located within The Lewis Building on the city’s Bull Street, into space for 60 cycle parking spaces and showers for these cyclists to use.
But it’s still sad to see a popular Brummie landmark disappear almost completely, especially as this award-winning location saw baristas from Six Eight Kafe win Northern Ireland Barista Championships (2012), Best Newcomer in the UK (2014) and reach the semi-finals of teh United Kingdom Barista Championships in 2012 and 2014.
Whilst this is a disappointing blow for the area, we have some good news for coffee enthusiasts, Six Eight will not disappear from the Brummie coffee scene entirely.
Instead, the flagship store will now migrate to Millenium Point. This secondary location will now become the flagship Six Eight Kafe store in the Midlands.
We can’t say the closing of a coffee shop is something to be happy about, but at least this closure does help alleviate the congestion and get people healthy by choosing to get out on their bikes and head to work, even if that does mean a slight detour to their favourite coffee shop in a morning!