COFFEE, CARS & THE KENT COAST.
There are plenty of places to grab a coffee in Margate. There are considerably fewer serving it from the back of a Lotus Elise.
Back in June, we headed down to the Kent coast to meet Josh, the man behind Café Elise, deliver his first batch of RACE / TWO and spend the day getting some photos of what has to be one of the more unusual coffee setups we've come across.
Café Elise is, as the name probably gives away, built around a Lotus Elise. Although, interestingly, that wasn't always the plan.
Josh had actually been sitting on the idea for around two years and always knew Margate was where he wanted to do it. The original plan, however, was to build the concept around a Porsche 928. Being Porsche people ourselves, you'd think we'd be disappointed with the change of direction, but in this instance we think he probably made the right decision.
The Elise gave the café its name, became a huge part of its identity and certainly gives people a reason to stop and have a look.
Or, in Josh's words:
“Then again, it’s not every day you see a coffee machine on the back of a Lotus Elise.”
He has a point.
When Josh finally brought the idea to life, even he wasn't expecting it to gain traction quite as quickly as it did.
“I had the idea two years prior and always knew Margate was the place to do it. I didn’t realise just how quickly it would take off!”
RACE / TWO MEETS CAFÉ ELISE
We've always been quite selective about who we work with through RACE / COFFEE. It's never really been about getting our coffee into as many places as possible. We'd much rather work with interesting people and businesses where there's a genuine connection to what we're doing.
Café Elise ticked a lot of boxes.
Cars and speciality coffee are obviously two of them, but we also loved the fact Josh had taken an idea that was a little unusual and just gone and made it happen. It felt very much at home within the world of RACE & TAYLOR.
So in June, the first batch of RACE & TAYLOR × CAFÉ ELISE RACE / TWO made its way down to Margate.
RACE / TWO is the coffee Josh now serves through Café Elise. Customers can also pick up a bag to take a bag home.
We also wanted to create something specifically for the partnership rather than simply hand over our usual bags.
As with all of our collaborative labels, we kept the recognisable RACE & TAYLOR format but built the artwork around Café Elise itself. The illustration places the Elise on the Margate beachfront looking back towards Dreamland, tying the coffee into the place where Josh originally imagined the whole idea.
It's one of our favourite parts of working with other businesses. Every label ends up telling a slightly different story, while still being unmistakably part of RACE / COFFEE.
The trip down also gave us an excuse to spend some time with Josh, shoot the Elise and see the setup properly for ourselves. We'd obviously seen plenty of it beforehand, but there is something particularly good about seeing an espresso machine sitting on the back of a Lotus on the Margate seafront.
It's certainly not subtle.
Café Elise has become one of a slowly growing number of independent businesses now serving RACE / COFFEE, and it's exactly the sort of partnership we want to continue building.
Different businesses, different stories and different reasons for doing what they do, with good coffee running through the middle of it.
For Josh, Café Elise started as an idea two years before he finally made it happen. For us, we're very pleased that somewhere along the way it also became a home for RACE / TWO.
If you're down on the Kent coast and spot a Lotus Elise with a coffee machine hanging off the back of it, go and say hello to Josh.
And probably order a coffee while you're there.