Trinity Stores - An Old Fav

It's been a few weeks since we visited Trinity Stores for this review so sorry it's taken so long to get around to it. Fortunately I have a couple of notes and photos so I haven't forgotten anything.

First of all, I really like Trinity Stores. It has a nice vibe through a well put together food offering and a fit out that matches the menu perfectly. I'm not quite sure how to describe it - I keep thinking 'quaint' but I don't quite think that's the right adjective and don't think it does it justice.

I understant they're under new management, however that doesn't seem to have affected the quality of the place too much - which is a good thing.
Anyway, this place is a favourite for a number of reasons - it's location, it's atmosphere and it's food. It hasn't really got coffee or service down pat yet but they're not too bad.

The order was:
Cappuccino
Espresso
Victoria sponge
Carrot cake

The espresso was good, they're probably not using kick ass beans so I expect the espresso was as good as you could get given the inputs.

The cappuccino, served in a big mug was ok but didn't really have much kick to it. Or no 'teeth' as I saw someone describe a coffee recently. The froth was done quite well, relatively firm but generally speaking not a strong contender. I suspect it's a number of factors that differentiate this from a milk espresso based drink that you would get from the likes of George or Dee Light. Anyway, I don't want to beat up Trinity Stores on their coffee, I've had very good coffee here before, just not on this occassion. there are many other really good things about this place.

The best thing I would say for me is that it does the best Victoria sponge I've ever come across, and today's slice didn't disappoint. The carrot cake was good too.

They tend to have good tunes on at Trinity Stores and I love the vibe of the place, it's a brilliant people watching spot too.

The service gets to me a bit here sometimes, I would say ambivalence is how I would describe it, when you get there it sometimes seems that no one wants to serve you, in fact while we were having our cake and coffee the counter was unattended for a couple of minutes with a couple of punters politely waiting for someone to appear, eventually they did, although they didn't seem to realise their faux pas. Once you have their attention they're generally kind and efficient so not a major gripe.

While not part of this trip Mrs Spiller is a big fan of their salad plate for lunch, and I'm partial to their Scotch eggs.

Scores:
Coffee
Hot: 9/13
Aroma: 7/13
Flavour: 7/13 
Texture: 10/13
Presentation: 8/13

General
Service: 7/13
Food: 12/13
Atmosphere: 12/13

Overall 8/13.

The lowish overall score is based on the coffee, in my view this isn't the place to go for a kick ass coffee with teeth, it is a place to go for a treat though and we will be back again and again for treats.