We stayed on the Viaduct in Auckland when we were there for Xerocon this year. No chance of good coffee in that area! I knew Espresso Workshop was a 20 minute walk away in Britomart, we’d been there on our last trip, however when looking up their opening hours I spotted that they had a cafe in Parnell as well – quite close to our new office in fact!

First day in the office and we started the 11am coffee walk tradition – didn’t realize it was up such a huge hill in the heat though! However, I rated my chances better than the Italian restaurant downstairs.

The cafe is on a small street parallel to Parnell Rise so quite handy if you know where it is. The cafe was quite cool, a little cabinet of food, the roasting equipment, a pour over bar and machine.

The coffee was OK but not that great, too weak. But I wasn’t that surprised, Auckland doesn’t always deliver the best. Great little carrot cakes though!

We went back each day we worked in the office, even took Deborah from the US office coffee group one day

Espresso Workshop, 19 Falcon Street, Parnell, Auckland @EspressoWrkshop

Imagine my surprise when I bumped into an old colleague on the way back to our Viaduct hotel (Sofitel) and she told me that in the foyer of the Vodafone office building that was right across the street from the hotel was the latest Mojo.

Open nice and early for office workers so that became our breakfast spot while in Auckland for Xerocon. They did table service for breakfast which was pretty quick despite how busy they always were at the start of the day – 2 lines of early morning coffee drinkers. They also had homemade grain bread which made very nice toast for my butter (needed more though!) and peanut butter. Coffee (flat white) was fairly decent and strong too – probably the best I’ve had in Auckland.

Mojo, Vodafone Building, 20 Viaduct Harbour Ave, Auckland @mojocoffeenz

Happy to be reunited with Sara! We went out for breakfast before the 1st day of the Xero conference. In typical Auckland fashion it rained. We walked from where we were staying near the Auckland office and I was very pleased to discover that the cafe was basically only as far as one we often go to when visiting the office, on the main road (College Hill) which is dreadful. However, that was the last week our office was on that side of town so might not need to remember this place in future!

The cafe had quite cool olde worlde NZ decor, especially the big paint-by-numbers NZ scene on the feature wall. The toast was good, although rather a lot of it, and the latte made with Supreme beans was pretty good, perhaps not as rich as I like but WAY better than the place around the corner on the main road.

Queenie’s Lunchroom, 24a Spring Street, Freemans Bay, Auckland

We had a tight timeline our first morning in Auckland after getting off the plane at 4.30am – shower, breakfast, post office, US Consulate. I’d researched a couple of likely coffee places in the central city seeing as that’s where the Consulate was. Espresso Workshop in the new Britomart Centre was our first pick, especially as we also had to report for the train there early Saturday morning and I wanted to see if that was a likely option for avoiding train coffee or a 2.5 hour ride to Hamilton on no coffee at all! (Sadly it didn’t open early enough so we had to have a few sips of warm milk with a slight coffee flavor from Sierra in the railway station before boarding the train).

Breakfast at Espresso Workshop this morning was perfect for our first meal back in New Zealand. Wonderful thick cut white toast and great coffee. I was happy!

Espresso Workshop, Britomart Espresso Bar, 11 Britomart Place, Auckland Central @EspressoWrkshop