Two Fifty Square Coffee – A new king of coffee?

Nicola

Coffee. The other black stuff. Liquid sustenance. Life in a cup. My first few months working for Lovin Dublin saw my coffee habit go from relatively mild to full on oh-god-cannot-live-without-it. Working remotely (i.e skulking around cafés for hours abusing their free wifi) meant I got very well acquainted with the Dublin coffee scene. 3FE was and still is my favourite place to get a few hours solid work done and drink the best coffee in Dublin. Honourable mention to them for great wifi and not giving me weird looks for bopping along to music as I worked.

When we did our City Spotlight on Rathmines a few weeks ago, the indignant outcry that we had overlooked Two Fifty Square was eh, a tad overwhelming. People were raving about it to us and we asked ourselves ‘Is it that good?’ and ‘How the hell have we not heard about it before?’ given we all live and work in Rathmines (yes, yes we know….).

It turns out, there’s a good reason for this – Two Fifty Square is tucked away on Williams Park off Rathmines Road so it’s not somewhere you’d pass and wander in to. Rather than this being a drawback, Two Fifty Square benefits from its seclusion – a slick (dog friendly) outside seating area is the perfect place to chill.

The Vibe

Modern coffee shop (you can see where they’ve taken cues from 3FE); an industrial warehouse vibe with stripped back elements, bleached wood, metal and splashes of colour. All wonderfully Scandinavian. With one notable and interesting exception: Two Fifty Square will be roasting their own beans on the premises – when you walk in the sales counter for beans is the first thing you notice.

The Coffee

So the important part: the coffee, is it any use? In short, yes – this is proper coffee, well made and they’ve got all the good stuff to choose from: aeropress, V60 and proper Vietnamese iced coffee. I didn’t bother with food as I was on a coffee mission but pastries, brownies and gourmet sandwiches are all on offer. Tea is supplied by Wall&Keogh for those of you who are boring/like tea. €3 for a cappuccino or €4 for a Vietnamese iced coffee puts this in a fairly standard price bracket.

We spent an hour sussing out the place and the effort put in to the design, branding and coffee is obvious from the outset. Two Fifty might not be revolutionary but it definitely maintains the high standard set elsewhere in town. Friendly staff, proper coffee and a nice vibe make this somewhere I could happily see myself working away on the laptop for a few hours.