This post, featuring Ophelia Café, is the ninth in an occasional series about my favorite coffee shops in Joburg.
Making a great coffee shop is about more than just serving great coffee. In the global indie coffee culture of 2019, coffee shops must also have style. They must be bright and Instagrammable, in a cool but unlikely location, with pretty tableware and light fixtures. The food must be good. The servers must be attentive and friendly, preferably with tattoos and cool but effortless-looking hairstyles. The furniture must be attractive and comfortable but not too comfortable, as customers need to stay awake as they type away at their MacBooks.
Ophelia Café in Emmarentia checks all these boxes.
Ophelia opened a couple of months ago in this funny, retro little shopping center/apartment cluster at the corner of 5th Avenue and Thomas Bowler Street (just behind the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens) in Emmarentia. I go past this center all the time – it’s a four-minute drive from Melville – and have been waiting for years for something cool to open there. (The fantastic Craft Beer Library, which used to be up the road in Linden, is now at the back of this same center.)
I had coffee at Ophelia for the first time yesterday and couldn’t wait to blog about it.
My friend Frances and I had coffee and a light lunch at Ophelia. I’ll let my pictures tell the rest of the story.
Get to Ophelia for your next coffee date. It’s perfect.
Ophelia Café is at Buiding 2A, 5th Avenue, Emmarentia.
Pin It:
How have I never blogged about 44 Stanley Avenue, the coolest shopping and dining complex in Joburg, which is only five minutes from my house?
I guess it’s wrong to say I’ve never blogged about 44 Stanley; I’ve mentioned it countless times over the years (see here and here) when writing about specific restaurants or shops that are there. But I’ve never written a dedicated post about 44 Stanley as a destination and it’s about time I did – especially now, with the holidays upon us.
I’ve been dreadfully uninspired lately, struggling to think of anything I want to blog about despite having a long list of great ideas (many of which you, my readers, provided in September). I’m finding it hard to feel positive about life at the moment. But on Saturday Thorsten and I got the chance to visit Indwe Park, an indigenous garden and sculpture park in Braamfontein, and I knew I had my topic for today.
Given this week’s political nuclear bomb blast, it feels like a weird time to publish a light-hearted post about my recent (pre-election) jaunt through the United States. But I’m hoping you’ve have had enough of the U.S. election horror show – I know I have – and are ready (at least temporarily) for some wholesome American travel adventures. If so, please read on about my four-day visit to Maine, the northeastern-most state in the lower 48, with my sister, Susanna.
Use the share button below if you liked it.
It makes me smile, when I see it.